An awkward first date.
- FETU
- Apr 12
- 3 min read
I promised Gerard I would help, as soon as I stopped laughing. Unfortunately, every time I looked at him, I dissolved into sniggering again. This was funny, and it was going to make an epic story for the sharing fire. My name is Fetu, and Gerard is my new friend. I've been trying to help him adjust to our island. I know he is from a distant place that is much different from my home.
I've heard that different places do different things, and I know there are many lands across the sea I will never know. Still, men and women should be easy. I had assumed the way it was done on PukaPuka was the way it was done everywhere. Apparently not. There are more women than men on PukaPuka, so our women do the asking. If a Sand Maru woman wants you to share her bed, she will braid a necklace of flowers and place it around your neck. Thats it. Then you go to her hut and share a bed. She may only keep you for an hour or decide to keep you for years. She may ask you to move in and share a hut, or she may only want you when the moon is full. There might be an exchange of promises, or maybe just an exchange of fish. It's a perfect system.
Gerard had been here five days when a young woman approached him with a flower necklace. She spoke no English, and he spoke very little Maru. She offered the flowers, and he accepted, allowing her to place it around his neck. She took him by the hand and led him towards her hut. Gerard went along with her, thinking she was being very nice. As soon as she entered her hut, she stripped down to nothing and started to take Gerards clothes off. Gerard was a bit overwhelmed and backed away and ran for it.
Two days later, another island girl approached him on the beach with a flower necklace. She offered, and because he didn't understand, he didn't say no. She placed it around his neck. When she took his hand and tried to lead him away, he resisted. The woman smiled thinking she understood; he wanted their first joining to be right here on the beach. She began to disrobe, while he frantically tried to stop her. Neither had the words to explain themselves, but he did manage to convince her to keep her clothes on. Gerard left the woman on the beach and headed for the safety of his own hut. When he arrived, there were two women waiting outside his hut, one very young, and one very old. Both had flower necklaces. Gerard ran to my hut and hid inside until I got home.
My belly hurt, and I had to keep wiping my eyes, but I explained many things to Gerard. The flowers were an offer, to accept or decline, but gracefully. No expectations, no commitments. One could accept all offers, or only a few. This was normal, natural, and very public. Geard thought about it before asking a question.
"How do you decline gracefully?" he asked.
"Why would you decline?" O how I laughed.
Gerard explained that where he came from, the men did the asking. This sounded very confusing. How was a man supposed to know if a woman wanted him? Then he said his people only bedded one woman at a time. That seemed inefficient. Another rule was you could not sleep with a woman who was too young, and you were not supposed to sleep with a woman much older than you. When I asked why, he didn't know the answer, but said the rule was widely accepted. Finally, he said that in his tribe, you had to know a woman for months or even years before you shared a bed. Pure Madness! How did his village survive? How did they ever have babies?
At first, I thought he was trying to be silly and make me laugh. The more he talked, the more backwards his village sounded. I offered advice to my new friend, and suggested he try the Sand Maru way. I told him to pick one, or to pick many, and he would see that our way was better than his. He thought about my words for a time before asking a question that had me laughing all over again.
"How does a man ask a woman who hasn't spared him a glance yet?" he asked.
"This calls for some wine, and the answer could take us several days," I said, patting him on the shoulder.
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