Exhale - Queer African Erotic Fiction

Description

Exhale is a queer anthology wrapped in the idea of a release, a letting go, breathing out. An orgasm. These are the stories that come out when you play sip or spill, truth or dare, never have I ever and lasts longer than 7 minutes in heaven. With sexual experiences from all over Africa, this anthology introduces some exciting new literary voices and brings you some of your established favourites.

Sujets

• Littérature Africaine
• Littérature Africaine
• Romance
• Romance d'Afrique de l'Ouest
• Romance Sud-Africaine
• Adulte
• Romance contemporaine
• Sexualité
• sexualité
• South Africa
• Littérature et sexualité
• Sexualité
• Littérature sud-africaine
• Littérature Sud-Africaine

Informations

• Publié par: Blackbird Books
• Date de parution: 01 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781990977145
• Langue: English

Extrait

Exhale



First published by Blackbird Books, 2020
593 Zone 4
Seshego
Polokwane 0742
South Africa
www.blackbirdbooks.africa
© A HOLAAfrica! Project, 2020
All rights reserved.
ISBN 978-1-990977-14-5
Also available in print.
Cover design by Megan Ross
Editing by Efemia Chela
Layout design by Nsuku L. Sithole
Proofreading by Katlego Tapala
See a complete list of Blackbird Books titles at wwwblackbirdbooks.africa



Exhale
Queer African Erotic Fiction






Contents
The Sweetest Ache by Mercy Thokazane Minah / X Ache
Inswa by Mubanga Kalimamukwento
When We Breathe by Fiske Nyirongo
PLAY by VonZigo
Sizwe Wants to Make Love by Lawrence Mashiyane
She Was Made of Sunlight by Tshegofatso Senne
Ujasiri by Akou Midadje
The Fool by Nakhane
Jigida and the Mouth Thing by Cisi Eze
Biology Practicals by OluTimehin Adegbeye
Everyone We Love Can’t Be Saved by Kabelo S. Motsoeneng
Wet Dreams by Lady Nwadike
NEXT APPT. by Yvonne Onakeme Eteghene
First Time by Lady Nwadike





The Sweetest Ache
Remi struggled to sit up straight in her chair in the coffee shop. The heat and jetlag made it impossible for her to keep her eyes open. She was more hungry than tired, and irritable from no food or sleep for the last few hours. Her flight to Zimbabwe had been sketchy, to say the least. The dubious pilot had insisted on flying through a minor storm and landing in lush green fields just outside Harare. She’d had to endure a hot taxi ride into the city, as well as a delay with checking in to the hotel she’d booked the week before. As a hard-working activist and reporter, this wasn’t the first time Remi wondered whether taking her mother’s advice – to get a ‘real’ degree – would have been a better idea than ‘following her heart’.
As the trendy and obviously popular little cafe started to fill up with more tourists and local patrons, Remi gave herself a few slaps to the cheeks, blinked several times, and used her dirty boots to pull her luggage closer underneath the table. Her legs were stiff and moving her left prosthetic made the stump just under her knee tingle. She suppressed the urge to stretch the leg and lift up her pants to give it air.
‘Weell you be ordering anything ma’am?’ The voice was surprisingly raspy for a girl with such a sweet face.
Remi looked up with interest at the young waitress standing beside her table. She was a dark and tall girl, with the kind of striking features any modelling agency worth their salt would lap up. Wide almond-shaped eyes; a small rounded nose and plump lips a shade or two darker than the rest of her face. She didn’t seem to have any airs and pretences about her though; rare for a conventionally beautiful girl. Her face was kind; the tap of her pen against her notepad was more habit than impatience or boredom.
Remi ordered the club special: a burger with fries. She knew she wouldn’t touch the meal but it bought her more time with the beautiful waitress, even if it was in this hellhole. Lord knew when she’d be cleared to finally go to her hotel room. At least in this place, she could sit for long periods of time and not seem weird. She ran a hand through her matted black curls and pressed the back of the other on her soaking forehead. How the hell did anyone survive this heat? Her eyelids fluttered slightly as the heat began to make her dizzy. She didn’t know how long she’d last in there, but she had no intention of going anywhere any time soon.
It was only when she heard, rather than saw, the sound of the glass being placed on her table that she realised she’d allowed her eyes to close, dozing off. The waitress was back and she’d put a glass of ice cold beer that she hadn’t ordered on the table in front of her. Remi tried to mumble a protest, but it was lost in the parched gulp in her throat as she eyed the sweating glass of cool bliss. The waitress winked at her and quickly turned to serve a table adjacent to Remi’s.
Remi couldn’t remember the last time she’d hit on a woman, let alone allowed herself to flirt with her. She felt rusty and wasn’t sure she could still read any of the signs. She looked around for the beautiful waitress and noticed that no one else seemed to have received any complimentary beers from her. A moment more of this speculation and Remi would pass out from overthinking, exhaustion and starvation. She grabbed at the glass on the table and tipped her head back, taking huge gulps of the heavenly, impossibly cold beverage. A few rivulets of beer streamed out the sides of her mouth and down her chin, catching the attention of a group of Germans sitting at the next table.
Again she was surprised by the waitress’ hands, gently brushing the offending liquid from her chin. The gesture was so subtle that Remi wondered if she hadn’t imagined the whole thing. Walking away once again, the waitress turned around and shared a secret smile with the hot and bothered activist. Remi felt her hard, aggressive face spread into a grin in spite of itself, felt warmth rise into her cheeks and an involuntary brightness seep into her eyes.
She had no idea what was going on here but she liked the feeling of being carried along on something so golden and warm. Eventually everyone else in the café faded into nothingness and there was no one else left but Remi and the enchanting waitress. She watched the girl flirt and smile at customers wearilessly. She watched her deftly handle drunk and disorderly patrons with a stern but patient smile. She made them feel like she remained their friend, even when they were in trouble. Remi could understand why this girl was made to work so many tables. She had the kind of personality that would keep people coming back to a place – on the off chance that she’d send a glance their way.
Remi was so enthralled by this woman that she didn’t even notice that the meal she’d ordered still hadn’t been delivered to her table. Her beer glass was long since emptied, but her thirst was secondary to her admiration and study of this beautiful woman who had so obviously singled her out in a café filled with attractive people, from all over the world. She couldn’t help but notice the very feminine structure of the waitress’s body beneath her flattering uniform.
Her body seemed like that of a goddess underneath the plain black shirt dress she, and all the other waitresses wore to serve everyone. Her legs radiated a rich dark brown goodness and seemed to go on for an eternity. Her breasts pressed against the buttons of her shirt dress and her clavicles stood guard against the longest and most graceful neck Remi had ever seen. Remi watched the girl’s hands and wondered what it would feel like to study them up close, to taste them. She wondered what it would feel like to have that tall, perfect body pressed against her own big imperfections. Hard, sturdy arms, experienced, veined hands, a large belly softened by years of beer-jugging, hardened by bad travel food and occasional beatings from police officers and homophobic thugs.
Remi found herself taking inventory of her body. This battlefield of exhaustion and dried-up excitement. This graveyard of broken hearts and shattered loves, this broken down machine rusty from lack of use, slow and cranky from too much use. She wondered if the waitress would ever be able to accept her. Could she accept the hard arms and broad shoulders, the big belly and thickening thighs, the landscape of tattoos collected from traumatic and beautiful travels across the globe? The leg – which wasn’t really a part of her but was very much a part of her. The result of a freak accident in a place she once called home.
She thought of her face, covered in holes from when the night’s nerves and heartache drove her to dig her nails into her flesh, digging out craters until she resembled the moon. She thought of her hair − looking like the bad aftermath of a good haircut. The thick black curls, locks of which hung low over her hooded brown eyes and large nose. She thought of her complexion, once a caramel yellow but now a golden bronze thanks so very much to the African sun. You’ll have to take me as I am baby, I’ve lived, she found herself muttering as her eyelids once again began a speedy descent onto her cheeks.
This time, she awoke from a deep sleep. Someone was sitting across from her and there was silence all around them. Remi started and sat right up, instantly alert. Her eyes met the eyes of the waitress, and they were swimming with kind mirth.
‘You’ve been asleep for a long time now. I even finished cleaning up the kitchen and putting up all the chairs.’
Remi thought she could listen to the complicated music of her voice forever. A rough smoker’s voice, yet laden with a breaking timbre, as though it was arguing with itself about which octave to settle on. She looked at her face and felt a surprisingly immediate endearment towards her; too many years of heartbreak had made Remi wary of falling too quickly. The waitress looked a lot older up close and in the fluorescent lighting of the now closed and virtually empty cafe. Her eyes were a light honey brown and the laughing lines underneath them didn’t take away from the stark beauty of the large almond-shaped eyes, in any way. Her complexion reminded Remi of late evening skies in countries whose names she couldn’t remember. A wealth of dark brown and midnight black magic.
The waitress had a head covered in the neatest cornrows Remi had ever seen. She smelled of a sweet citrusy perfume and strawberry cupcakes. Remi felt something deep inside of her begin to stir; she felt an urgency right beneath her belly for this lovely woman before her. She wanted nothing more than to take this woman away and make love to her. Prepos