You come over to the kitchen, wrap your hands around me. You kiss my neck, and I giggle and blush like I am not a 43 year old woman. You whisper into my ear something nice. I push you away playfully.

You asked me a year ago why I loved you. I blushed. Then I said something about not having the words for it. Imagine that. A writer lacking the words to explain an emotion. I've thought about it long and hard. Of you, of me, of us. So here's your answer; a year later....this is why I love you.

The first time a man touched me, it was at home. I was barely 6 years old. My parents used to travel a lot for work. Most of the time, it was just me and the nanny. That afternoon, she was giving me a bath.

My mum will go to church that day. She will sit at the edge of the wooden pew, on the fourth bench from the front. She has always sat there. Close enough to the altar, but not too close that everyone notices. She will pray. And because God is in her pocket, he will listen. Somehow, my many sins will be forgiven, I will see heaven, on the back of my mother's prayer.

The guitarist begins, slowly at first. Strumming a few lines that get everyone silent. He is the best in the country and everyone can see why. He strums it again. This time without letting go. The way a hungry lover devours his woman. As if every croon of her body was a hidden treasure willing him to find it. The guitar gives way to him. Churning out the most melancholic of tunes. The music carrying in its potency the sum total of the grief of a people. Then just before the singer comes on, he slows the guitar even further.

Do you ever look at young lovers and pity them? The way their fingers find every excuse to intertwine. The simplicity, the genuineness of how much they like each other. The naivety of believing it is enough.

I touch the words inscribed there..."Hapo Zamani."

My husband's idea. To remind him. To remind us. That once upon a time she existed.

The men begin to talk specifically about how they will play the song at the funeral. They discuss this in low tones, listening to the song, writing down some notes as the continue to discuss. The deputy president can contribute nothing to this conversation. His skills are more attuned to manipulating the minds of the people than any musical instrument.

For some reason, she kept coming back to his bar. She was nice to him, unlike the rest of us in bars when we have a bit of money. Where we insist on calling waiters and bar tenders like dogs, "Wewe, leta mbili baridi!"

But before she went, she kissed me, and suddenly I was 18 again. Having just kissed Nina. The little princess that my heart pined after then. Her father having threatened to eat my balls if he saw me with her again. I would have risked everything for that girl, Nina. Her father found out about the kiss. He snitched to my mum about it. They collaborated in giving me the most fire of beatings I would ever receive. I remember every time the whip landed on my back. I thought of her lips, they looked like 2 slices of freshly cut beef about to be deep fried. Her lips in mine felt like a fresh mango, that has had the time to ripen, served with blood red pepper. They hurt and pleasured me in equal measure.

They smell of boyhood. He wonders if they know the singular joy of cupping a woman's breast in your hand and....