Nancy was a lady I developed a huge crush on in Lake Toba.

I hadn't felt this way about a woman in years, it was bordering on the obsessional. But I'm getting ahead of myself, the story about Nancy starts a way back, shortly after I arrived in Lake Toba.

Nancy has a sister called Anita, herself astoundingly beautiful, and together with a lovely man call Sol, they ran a late night bar in lake Toba.

At first, I was drawn to Anita, though I flirted with both. Anita seemed less aloof and more welcoming. Most nights I'd end up at the bar playing pool with other Ferang and some of the locals, and one night in particular I became rather drunk. Anita and Nancy insisted that I should stay, rather than stagger the mile or so home in the pitch black on my bicycle (i'd bloody well fallen off twice before and cracked my skull), so I accepted.

After the bar closed, the girls would relax with a few drinks, and sure enough Anita and I ended up in each others arms. Sloshed, I ended up with my head in her lap, while she stroke my head and chatted to Nancy.

Eventually, she reached down and whispered,

'I think you want to be cheeky monkey with me.'

This was a euphanism for sex, one of many charming ephanisms I met in this relatively conservative culture. I agreed, that possibly I did, and Anita and her friends shrieked with laughter. She refused of course, and that night I slept alone.

The next night, feeling vaguely awkward, I apologised, but she said, no problem, she like me too, but...she left it hanging. In mitigation, I bought a bottle of vodka for Anita, Nancy and myself, and as the evening was quiet, we proceeded to get rather drunk again. I became friendly with Nancy, and she told me her story, sad and sweet, tragic and funny. All Nancy wanted to do was to escape Samosir island and Lake Toba and travel to Europe. On her pitiful wage, this was unlikely, her only chance was to find a rich Western man to help her out.

Anita, Nancy and were to became a regular late night feature, but the next night Anita suprised me when I offered her a drink along with myself and Nancy. She declined. I wondered why, and was insensitive enough to ask why she didn't want to drink that night. Of course she burst into tears. Nancy whispered to me, that she had become pregnant by another man a few weeks ago, and that now she had decided to terminate the pregnancy.

Later, Anita came and apologised, and we snucked off into a corner for a chat. I told her that the apologies were mine alone, and that I had no right to pry. But she told me told me her story anyway. It was the usual sorry tale, of Ferang promising the earth to a beautiful, gullible young woman, just so she would fuck him, to be frank. And of course they would leave, promising to call, and of course they rarely did. Perhaps that's not quite right, they call at first, then the calls get less and less frequent until finally they cease alltogether. And, sometimes, the girl is left holding the baby. Literally.

Anita then explained why she refused to accept the drink, when she had been drinking heavily the night before. She had been drinking heavily since she found out she was pregnant, she didn't normally drink. Then when I came along, she realised something that she had denied to herself before. She was pregnant, in some strange way she had been in denial, was refusing to accept the facts that her own body was shrieking at her. I think it was because I was making a pass at her that bought her to her senses in a strange way. She had decided to terminate the pregnancy. And this is why she had decided to stop drinking the very next day.

I was confused, but left it at that, why, if she was going to terminate the pregnancy, why was she stopping drinking? Later, I asked Nancy about this conundrum. What Nancy said blew my mind. It turns out that having coming to terms at last that she really was pregnant, and having made the decision that she was going to 'kill her baby', as Nancy put it, she was determined not to harm her baby in any way before the termination. I still cannot understant this logic, but then, this isn't about logic is it? That a woman can show so much love to what's growing inside her, so that she sought not to harm it for as long as it was alive, reduced me to tears, literally. She wanted her baby, but she knew she could not have it and give it a decent future. I still don't understand, but I've talked to a few women since about this, and to them it made perfect, though tragic, sense.

The late night drinking sessions were therefore reduced to Nancy and myself, and I soon became enamoured of her considerable feminine attractions. Nancy also used to purr, or growl when she spoke. She used to call me 'Jorrrnnnner' as she spoke. She was a real man eater. Nancy had a bit of a reputation. She would wrap sex obsessed idiots like myself around her beautiful body and being the weak-willed-way-of the-flesh men that most men are they would soon find themselves promising her the earth. But Nancy was no fool, and she was happy to take just a small piece of it. Last year she upset one Dutch guy, who sent her $5000 so that she could join him in Europe. She spent the money on some new clothes, but gave most of it to her family so that they could dig a new well, repair their house and buy medecine. Nancy's dreams of escaping were always secondary to the welfare of her family.

Nancy was a great swimmer, and would often swim a mile out into the lake before coming back, she was a terrific athlete with the body to show it. I slept at the bar most nights, but despite my best attempts, Nancy never succumbed to my advances. We became good friends, sometimes just holding one another close as we fell asleep in one anothers arms, In the morning, she would always be gone, and I would ride home alone, wondering why she would not accede to me, for I too would have succumbed to her wishes and promised her the earth, that's how insane with lust I was for the delectable Nancy.

Batak culture is quite conservative, and because many cultures don't like to refer to sex directly they use euphamisms. I had another girl friend there and used to pop by on the way to see Nancy to ask her if she was going to come out for a drink later. One night she shook her head and, pointing to her stomach and said,

'No too good'

Her friend laughed, moved her hand down to her crotch and said,

'She bad pancake!'Â and roared with laughter.

My friend had a spot of PMT, and if you look at a folded omlette or pancake the euphamism becomes quite obvious - I laughed as well. It was my last night, so I was disappointed that she couldn't come and see me off. It was also the last night that I would see the focus of my lust, Nancy, and I'm convinced that if my visa wasn't about to expire that I would have stayed even longer, a slave to my impossible lust over this extraordinary woman.

We had a splendid party, Nancy flirted with me as usual, and like a slack jawed drooling idiot I clung onto every growled inuendo, every brush of her hand, every teasing kiss and touch. Eventually there were only a handful of us left, and we gathered around a small table, the music silent as we listened to the song of the night instead, Nancy's hand brushing up and down my thigh, driving me mad. Suddenly, she leaned across, kissed my cheeked and growled in my ear,

'Jorrrrn, I worrrnt to be cheeky mourrnkey which yooooo.'

Later, when everyone else was a bed, she took my hand and led me to the pool table. There she Unbuttoned her blouse and leant back lazily over the beize,

And then we were very cheeky monkeys indeed.

yechydda,

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