A Hollow Promise

 
My hand slid up her slender thigh.

‘Ouch!’

I was shocked ‘you’re still a virgin?'

She blushed ‘yes.’

Amrita was a slim, alluring Indian girl of eighteen with huge molten eyes and shining black hair. God, I wanted her.

We were lying in a hollow in the sandy beach. The sea was dark, turbid with the outpouring of the Demerara River. Over the sea wall to our right, the bandstand's leaden roof shone dully in the afternoon sun.

In British Guiana 1964 'nice' girls came on a first date with a chaperone (You’d better believe it) otherwise it was assumed all systems go. I felt bad. She’d trusted me without a maiden aunt’s presence. I backed off ‘you sure you want to?’

‘I,...I think so’

Think so? Jesus! Not good enough I thought. We soldiers had to be so careful. We couldn’t afford to give anyone an opportunity to cry rape. We were there to keep the peace so had to maintain a high level of discipline. There were plenty of willing girls about and I didn’t need her father hunting me with a machete.

I’d met her a few days earlier when some rioters had tried to burn her father’s shop. By using a little rifle butt diplomacy, we persuaded them not to. Her father was overjoyed, so was she; that modest little shop was their only home and their livelihood, too.

First date over, we agreed to meet the following afternoon which would be my first full day off in a month. Eager with anticipation we parted on a kiss and a promise.

Next day went shit state as the rioters kicked off again. All days off were cancelled. By the time we got back, we were knackered. I cleaned my rifle, fell on my bed and slept until ten that night. Amrita had been and gone.

Next night I fell for the charms of a bar girl we called Nellie-the-Belly because of her skill at belly dancing. When she performed, Nellie gave every bloke with a pulse a raging hard-on. Amrita came into the bar and saw us together, her face fell, and she turned away. By the time I untangled myself from Nellie, and went after her, she’d gone, I guessed that was that.

A few days later I was reading a book written by a Canadian bloke who’d been successfully sluicing the rivers of Guiana for alluvial gold and diamonds. He described how, on a break, he was lying in a hollow on the Georgetown beach with the bandstand roof in view over the seawall. He and his girl had enjoyed a bit of ‘afternoon delight.’ Ironically, I was reading this lying in that very same hollow hoping against hope Amrita might show.

Postscript:

Nellie quickly moved on to her next conquest and then we were gone, shouted upriver to quell another troublesome pisshole.

I never saw my virgin again. 😥