Chapter 2: Bosoms over Braazaville

Braazaville was just as I'd remembered it from those old Tarzan movies and French Foreign Legion recruiting posters. Devilishly hot, foul smelling, unbearably tedious, and teeming with several hundred thousand people having the exact same characteristics. Our luggage was torn open, inspected and finally passed by the Customs Officer, after he pocketed a pair of Tess's thong panties and rubbed one of Mariana's bras between his fingertips for several minutes. Leering at me from under eyebrows thick enough to hide a brace of pigeons, he chortled "Kwame abu maka logee, konga lagonga maka logee", which, if I remembered my Congolese, meant "I will trade you three goats and a chicken for the large breasted one". I demurred, threw a wad of 5 pound notes on his desk, and collected our belongings.

We were supposed to have been met by a local entrepreneur who promised he was a tour guide, interpreter, taxi driver and Professor of Natural History, all in one. I didn't believe the part about the taxi driver, as there was no one to be seen outside the terminal except the professional beggars, several dozen Pakistanis selling water ice to each other, and a family of goats breezily feeding on the grass growing up between the potholes. After about a quarter of an hour in the sweltering sun, a large bang and a noxious cloud of blue smoke signaled the imminent arrival of our transportation.

The driver careened around the corner in a Morris Minor that had not seen a garage since Churchill was in office, and as he rumbled to a stop, the left front fender came unhinged with a loud clang. Out jumped one of the smallest, ugliest men I have ever seen. He banged the rebellious fender back into place with his hand, and hopped up on the curb to corral us before we could turn around and head for another plane out of town.

"ahhhha Mister and Missy, how fine to be seen by you today, how is your trip, welcome to the marvelous city town of Braazaville, one of the most hysteric places in all of Africa it is my journey to help you with your trip and becoming one of the most useful mens you will ever know" he chattered, grabbing six suitcases, a steamer trunk, and Mariana's rump all without missing a beat. She whacked at him and he ignored her, reaching instead for the rest of the equipment, tossing it into the back seat of the Minor with all the care and delicacy of a longshoreman handling bags of cement. I looked at Tess and grinned.

"Local colour, eh?"

She smirked back and me, and pushing Mariana ahead of her, the two of them ducked into the front seat of the Morris. I hadn't noticed it before, but there was a very tattered, and mysteriously stained, old sofa in the front of the car, obviously truncated to about half it's former length and serving as the forward seating area.

"Mister wait here I be back before you know it we fit no more into car right now or it break down so I take Missy and Missy to hotel staying at where you are in very few hours and minutes then come right back for you ok ok ok?". Before I could protest, he had scampered around the front of the car, climbed in through the window, and, with a speed belying its age and obvious mechanical decrepitude, the car shuddered away from the curb and sped off into the brown haze. Just before it disappeared from sight, I swear I saw his arm reach over and pull Mariana's head down into his lap, but I couldn't be sure. Another explosion from the tail pipe, a cloud of bluish smoke, and the car was gone.

Nearly twenty minutes later I'd had enough standing around, and, resisting the blandishments of the various Pakistanis to partake of their somewhat ill-looking water ice, decided to walk to the hotel. Getting directions from the few local residents who seemed to be alert enough to tell, I followed my nose and the random automobile part until I could see the hotel about three blocks in the distance. As I looked around, I realized that Braazaville was full of buildings that were in the midst of construction, probably dozens in the midst of destruction, and some that seemed caught in both circumstances at the same time. It looked like mostly poor quality Soviet concrete, painted in ugly French colors, and spotted here and there with windows more yellow than clear. Finally I got to the hotel, and inquiring of the desk clerk in my finest French pig latin, where the rooms I'd rented were. He pointed up the stairs and said "Four."

There were no fixed ropes, so climbing recklessly, and with no regard for my own safety, I was desirous only of reaching the peak before sundown. At the summit, I made my way down the hallway, attempting to find the rooms we'd paid for. Three rooms in a row had no doors on them, much less occupants. Near the end of the hall, however, I started to hear what appeared to be rhythmic grunting, and a slightly less loud, but no less animated, female moaning. Turning into the room from where the sound came, I was astonished, but not surprised, to see our dark, miniscule new friend vigorously pummeling his cock into the upthrust loins of Mariana. And it wasn't the sight of that chocolate brown rump pistoning back and forth between the widely splayed thighs of our assistant that caught me off guard, so much as the eight or ten of Braazaville's biggest black men hovering around the bed. Waiting their turn, apparently, two of the larger ones stood on either side of the copulation, holding Mariana's legs as widely apart as they could without having to make a wish. Tess, bless her voyeuristic little heart, was scribbling notes furiously, a wispy stray tendril of hair occasionally being 'pfffed' away from her face. I sauntered over towards the window, hoping to take advantage of the slightly moving air that breezed by. I had not quite become re-accustomed to the somewhat briny odor of the natives and that plus the overloading of pheromones in the air was wreaking havoc with my nostrils. As I passed, I heard the taxi operator grunt forcefully several times. I could see in my mind's eye the opening of his penis expelling several fluid milliliters of rich, virile African semen into the no doubt receptive womb of the young woman beneath him. She squealed in pain/pleasure, as I'm fairly sure she had not had a full sized penis enveloped in her body for some time.