Day 6

“Please hug me David,” Teresa said opening her arms wide to receive me.

We were on the game drive in the Masai mara. The game drive we had both looked forward to so much. As I hugged her, I could overhear the German with his heavy accent informing the Danish tourist that we were the couple that were on a honey moon.

In my entire life I had never been able to put so much feeling into a simple hug. I felt like my heart would burst and I could feel the tears already starting to gather in my eyes.

God, I loved this woman. So this was what love was all about. What a pity that I finally found it in the no-win situation I was in.

My mind went back to the very first time Teresa had said those very same words;

“Please hug me David.”

It had been in my room with the dirty curtains in LA, shortly after I had said ‘yes’ to her crazy preposition. I remembered the moment in great detail. It now seemed such a long time ago and yet it was barely a month ago. Then I had been conscious of her soft body against mine. Her breasts pressed firmly against my chest. The guy in my trousers was already reacting and I was trying desperately to send a signal to him to take it easy.

Even Teresa must have felt him.

“You understand that one of the rules is that we can’t have sex.” She said too casually without breaking the hug.

“Of course,” I whispered as the guy downstairs finally cooled down and started behaving himself. I wondered what I’d let myself into.

This hug in the Masai Mara was different. Her breasts were pressing against my chest much more tightly than the other time, yet I was hardly conscious of them. Even the guy downstairs was fast asleep.

It is difficult for a man like me to adequately describe the rush of emotions I felt in my heart as I held on tightly to Teresa, tears now flowing freely down my cheeks. I felt a warm tender feeling in my heart that must have been the love thing people talk so much about. Yet I also felt terribly sad that it would never work out. About ten times worse than most people felt at the end of the movie, Titanic. It was all a kind of bitter-sweet feeling.

Oh heck, I’m not really good at this stuff, I don’t know if you understand at all.

Teresa looked into my eyes and tenderly brushed the tears away. Her blue eyes were misty and they looked deep into mine, reaching a place inside me where no woman had ever gotten to before. I wanted the moment to continue forever.

I kissed her softly on the cheek with so much feeling that we both trembled.

The tour guide/driver’s voice right at the front of the Nissan van broke up the moment.

“This is lion country, but it is not so easy to see lions at this time.” He talked as he kept his eyes on the dusty dirt track ahead.

“Lions prefer to hunt at night when it’s cooler and spend most of the day sleeping and lazing around. Of course if they’re too hungry to sleep they’ll hunt during the day. What I am saying is that it is highly unlikely that we will see any lions today. But even if we don’t, you will get a chance to see them when we get back to the city at the animal orphanage.”

We stopped to view a small herd of gazelles grazing peacefully. The driver switched off the engine and the German tourist with his powerful photography equipment started clicking away at the herd.

I picked up the binoculars to really get a closer look at the gazelles. I immediately sensed that there was something wrong. After the initial interruption of our approaching van, the gazelles had looked up briefly and then continued grazing. Now they stopped grazing again and most of them gazed in the opposite direction to where we were.

Suddenly the whole herd scattered in all directions. I shifted around my binoculars in desperation trying to find the source of their consternation.

I saw him when he was barely five meters away from his prey. I called out Teresa’s name, but kept the binoculars focused on the unfolding drama. The male lion covered the short distance with blinding speed and leapt on to the big gazelle’s back. Even before his weight brought down the prey, his right paw swiped across its’ neck with such force that I could almost feel it although we were almost 100 meters away from the action. The single blow must have broken the gazelle’s neck, because I saw it suddenly go limp.

The poor gazelle had no chance.

“I captured the whole thing in my digital camera. Tash will be ecstatic when I email her these photos.” It was Teresa jumping up and down with excitement and referring to her younger sister in Florida, Natasha.

The lion had by this time dragged his catch away into a big thicket. I grabbed the digital camera from Teresa and reviewed the photographs she had just taken.

I looked with fascination at the lion’s face just before it jumped on its’ prey. It looked so calm, so collected and majestic. No wonder they called him the king of the jungle.
The van was full of excitement.

“We are very lucky,” the tour guide driver was saying. “Although this is also the rainy season and a lot of gazelles are migrating across the plains making it very easy for the lions.”

“You mean it isn’t always easy for them? That was a very clinical kill we’ve just seen.”

“Oh no, it’s very competitive out there in the jungle. Especially for the lion. He’s a heavy, lazy animal and hunting is always very difficult for him. The big disadvantage is that because of his weight, he’s slow and relies on the short burst of speed to get to his meal. Very much like a 100 metres sprinter. In a straight race most of his prey is too fast, so the lion always tries to get as close to it’s prey as possible so that the short burst works.”

“Fascinating stuff,” the German said.

The driver continued. “Many lions die young. Either out of starvation or as a result of a fight with another lion. They are very violent animals.”

“Why do they have to be violent?” Teresa asked.

“Good question. Young lions usually grow up in a pride of about 30 or so lions where there are usually only 4 males. The rest are females and youngsters. The female lions do most of the hunting for the whole family. When the lion becomes of age they have to fend for themselves and a male will have to hunt on its’ own unless they can fight and kill the leader of a pride and thus take it over. If they succeed, they will then have most of the hunting done for them by the females in the pride.”


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