You can probably guess from the title that I didn’t go back as soon as I finished the books. Well, there you go. I didn’t keep my promise.

The day after I was unpleasantly surprised and spent time with Aidan; an apologetic Salome breezed in and we holed up in my room with the A.C on as low as it could go, talking about how things were going for each of us. As the temperature in the room got cooler, we slid under the gold comforter on my bed and the talk turned to boys, as it usually does between two straight girls (screw the Bechdel test). This was a short topic for me, because Salome already knew about the sort of boyfriend, but Salome talked about her various exploits and I listened excitedly.

It occurred to me that I might tell her about the day before, but when she asked what my holiday had been like so far, I only shrugged vaguely and she smiled and said, “Same.”

We watched An Affair to Remember, but by the time it was over she had to rush home so she could get her sister and go into town to be fitted for her cousin’s wedding.

I with the rest of the day I read the Great Gatsby, and as usual, felt rather ambivalent when I finally put it down towards the evening.

It was the difference in the way the character of Gatsby appeared in the Books and in the movie with Leonardo Di Caprio. As little depth as the movie version had; Leo did give a likable portrayal Gatsby. I always found that I wanted to believe in the green light across the bay and everything it signified as much as he did. And even though I knew how the movie would end, I would start to. So much so that when the scene with his unattended funeral came up, I always cried. The carelessness of Tom and Daisy always angered and disgusted me.

But I never pitied the Jay Gatsby in the books, for as incorruptible as his dream was, there was just the slightest whisper of something sinister in him. –Or at least, to me there was. I could never really tell what it was, but I didn’t like the version of Gatsby that lay therein.

It was the next day that I started 11/22/63: A Novel. For three slow days I read, putting it down when things got a little slow and then picking it up again after a few hours.

I thought in some places it got bogged down with details and I got a little confused towards the end, but I liked it well enough. This was also despite the fact that I thought Dan Brown was better and based on the time-travel premise of the book, 11/22/63 was a little predicable.

When I was done, I pictured myself having this conversation with Aidan, but couldn’t bring myself to actually go over and do it. It seemed rather forward, so I just put them in a nice plastic bag (feeling rather silly, I had sprayed a little of my perfume in it too) and sent Merita to deliver them. I did slide a neatly written note saying “Thanks, really liked them!” in there too, but that was it.

I could say that the next week or so passes without incident but that’d be lying.

The sort of boyfriend, whose name I shall now reveal to be WILLIAM did visit three times.

The first thing I ever noticed about Will was that he had the most kissable lips I’d ever seen, with a jaw line that went on for days. This was coupled with the fact that he had a little black beauty spot next just next to his mouth, and it was this that really made me sit up, because I found myself with an inexplicable, overwhelming urge to lick it. The thought alone was enough to make me blush. He also had smooth brown skin, and almond shaped eyes like the darkest caramel.

I didn’t like him properly for a while; (do I like him properly now though?) I just sort of noticed he was cute. The longer I knew him the less it seemed like we were going to date because we had such different interests.

He didn’t like reading books like I did, he wasn’t failing at adulting like I was, and he always seemed so responsible it was almost like he was trying to put the rest of us to shame. We tended to laugh at different things. He watched motivational videos and dressed semi-formally in button-down shirts… I mean come on. If I was a bully and this was primary school, I might’ve targeted him – only he was tall and good at sports so this probably wouldn’t have worked out.

It felt a little random when he started acting like he liked me, but the attention was nice and I eventually found out he was a phenomenal kisser so this led us to the place we were in now, just sort-of-dating. I did always wonder when I was away from him whether he really did like me or he was just jones-ing for a girl.

The thing was, my best friend Lisa was dating his best friend Chiku. Chiku was a tall golden-skinned boy. He always seemed quiet and pensive and to a certain extent, he was; only that when he did open his mouth and say something, it was almost always the funniest thing you’d heard all day. This and his knack for scoring people some weed on the fly made him one well-liked person. His relationship with Lisa only seemed natural; they gelled in a way that me and Will didn’t.

For instance, Will and I always made small talk at first, and I think it was because we were so different. It always took a while to get back into that space where we could talk freely. And, rarely did we talk into the night.

Anyway, the first time he came to my house (which is the first time he’d ever been to my house period) I snuck him in through the front of the house so the maids wouldn’t see us. After a quick tour of the place where Will heroically pretended to take it all in, I led him towards my room.

He paused in the doorway. His eyes scanned the looked at the indigo coloured walls and the artwork on them; then the Christmas-tree lights and the tray of chachkies on my desk and nodded.

(This is the small talk bit, I suppose.)

“This is definitely your room,” he’d said. I wasn’t sure what he meant by this so I had looked around and tried to see it as he did. He’d then leaned in and whispered, “It’s a nice room,” so I said, “Thanks.”

Then we sat on my bed. I tried to sit at the other end of the bed and talk to him because it bugged me that I couldn’t find one solid thing I connected with Will about. But as we always did, we just ended up making out.

I couldn’t understand how he was suddenly so close to me; one minute he’d been on the opposite end of the bed. After a few he was playing with my fingers. Within the next ten I found myself looking up into his face when I spoke, and then suddenly he interrupted my sentence and said “Come here,” and we were making out.

As per usual, things got heated, but we didn’t have sex. I just… I just thought for some reason that we should wait. But it was never an easy thing to remember when he was actually kissing me.

It’d start small, like then, he only pushed my shirt up a little, and slipped his fingers up underneath it. Because my camisole was tucked into my pants, he wasn’t exactly touching my bare skin just yet. But I could feel his fingers searching for the hem of it, and the very thought made my nipples pebble.

(I’m actually pretty sure he could feel them boring into his chest.)

“It’s tucked in.” I’d murmured, into his ear. He’d smiled, and I could feel it when his lips found mine again.

So, he had tugged it up and slipped his fingers in. My skin glowed warmly where he touched it, and at first his fingers just skimmed lightly over it, stroking small circles that made me squirm under him. After a few minutes of letting the anticipation build, he pushed my bra up and out of the way, his warm palm closing over my nipple.

At which he shifted his weight and I finally felt how hard he was.

-Which was very. He was very hard.

I’m sure you can understand the dichotomy I faced at this moment:

1. Do I stop this sexy, sexy man from kissing me? In which case, what would the next step be? But how could I when there was a very persuasive penis knocking at the door of my vagina?

2. In which case, do I keep going? I mean, who better to have it with than this sexy, sexy man who was kissing me right now?

I had reached for his belt buckle, but then the gate started clambering open and I nearly jumped out of my skin and into another dimension.

It was only Michael, but still, the mood was gone. Will Left about an hour later.

The second time he visited, we went for a short walk and just talked, since mum and dad were home and I couldn’t face the prospect of them finding out I knew of boys and was acquainted with one.

It was probably the last time I would see him until we went back to Uni in September, since he’d spend the rest of his holidays with his Dad in Mzuzu. It was probably this impending separation that prompted his question at the end of the date. As he was walked me towards our gate, he suddenly turned to me and asked,

“Are you my girlfriend now or what?”

We were standing so close I was fighting myself not to kiss him. I nodded, and his lips pressed to mine quickly in a stolen, public kiss. I mean, there was no one around but it was broad daylight and this is Malawi. I half expected that nun from Game of Thrones to come out from underneath a stone ringing her bell and chorusing “shame, shame, shame” each time it tolled.

He tugged at one of the strings of my hoodie playfully, and I smiled up at him. I knew then that I may not have been falling for him per se, but I did like him at the very least.

To seal the moment, I went up on my tiptoes and licked his beauty spot; which (as always) made him laugh.