Stories that remind you….of home.
The room’s features emerge, the walls plastered with renderings of cartoons chasing each other. Except for one wall. It’s painted pink. Solid. Only a single portrait, dead center, breaks the flow of color. The portrait has an image of a woman with a child. The woman’s features are barely discernible. Her face is buried in the baby’s stomach.
She kisses him. Tenderly. And a bit of that male hardness ebbs a bit, replaced with a mischievousness that is uncharacteristic of him. He pulls her in, and with the finger that was minutes past, drying toes, pushes back her hair. “Nimekumiss” He says. “Aaaaaah, uongo!” The way she says it betrays her. Or her beginnings at least. You can hear a bit, and I swear, just a bit of the Murang’a in Njoki. It only appears when she is vulnerable. Or emotional. Or horny. The practiced Ls disappearing, and in their place her native tongue reappears. But she catches herself again.
“Si basi ununue vitunguu basi juu unanimalizia hewa?” She demands. I apologize again, promising to disappear quickly as soon as you show up. I call you again. You have Sauti Sol’s “Intro” as your Skiza tune….”Do what makes you happy, do what makes you smile….” You end the call. Following it up quickly with a, “Sorry, can’t talk right now.”
The babe asks, turning her face to the man still partly inside her. It is only now that we see her face. Shapely, yes. With a roundness that would be unforgivable on another. But on her…God! She is comely, her skin tone the color of deep fried liver that has been allowed to rest for a day, or two. Though, she has something on her teeth.
I laid the great love of my life @WanjiruWaGitau to rest yesterday at her home in Makuyu, Murang'a. I'm breaking apart. Thank you all for your love, prayers and thoughts. Let me breath and rest. I will respond to all of you in time.
"Si alikuacha? Anataka nini basi? Aende!" Forgive Njogu for that. He has always been the hardliner among us. However, my wife has my ear when I am vulnerable. In the morning, as she prepares breakfast. She argues your case. In the evenings, as she backs into me in bed. She argues for you again. So consistently that I respond to your message.
It is drizzling outside, the type of rain that falls unwillingly. A few steady drops every 3 seconds. As if the raindrops would rather be anywhere but here, maybe in the ocean in Malindi. Waiting for a short girl with perky breasts to come into it instead of raining down into the dirtier side of Nairobi.
Karimi goes quickly into her bedroom, pulls out the red dress mum bought for her for special occasions and wears it. She pairs it with a dainty little handbag that her aunty Ciku bought last Christmas. Caps her ensemble with a pair of shoes that goes Ka Ka Ka when she walks. Only then, can we go!
Making out a bit. Sometimes we do more. But mostly telling each other the dark secrets only married or engaged people share.
I just finished washing you with that new shower gel we got. I rub you down. You keep fidgeting especially when the towel is in between your thighs. You tell me it makes you ticklish and horny at the same time. You are always finding excuses to get aroused.
Do you remember the first time you kissed a girl? Not a silly simple peck. I mean a proper kiss. The kind that starts on her neck, and somehow your tongue is at the back of her throat. Swabbing it. Tickling her esophagus. You can literally taste her insides with her pants on. And when you both come up for air, she has to take a step back to remind you that she has parents who would rather she was not devoured like this.
Perhaps the bible erred in telling us Heaven is a place with streets lined with gold. Maybe instead there’s free wine, music and we can hang out with friends and family for eternity. Every Saturday we will meet at Bonnie’s mansion for a welcome party. For the newbies who’ve been admitted in.
There is no lust here. No sin. Where once I would have described ladies thighs as heavenly. They are now meeeeh! Often, at the party, you will find me at the corner. Sipping something, talking to Cindy while staring at the door. Hoping maybe, today is the day you come.
We buried a friend today. Somewhere in Othaya. Where you need to turn left off the C70 and drive until you can smell the Aberdares. I couldn't make it. Work. I asked another friend to say goodbye for me. I know. How does one say goodbye to the dead? Forgive me. It felt right to … Continue reading In Remembrance
He looks disappointed, he probably thinks only bad people are born in Nairobi. I assure him only the politicians are bad. He waves me in smiling. He thinks I am funny. If I were a lady, I'd probably get a, "naweza kununulia soda baadaye madam?" Instead, I bear the burdens of masculinity. Making brothers laugh and getting a nod, only.
With that, the conversation turns to fatherhood. What fatherhood means for each of us. How our fathers color who we are as men, husbands and human beings. They asked me to swear not to write about it. Of course I refused. It's like asking a Nairobi man not to hit on his girlfriend's busty friend. It is impossible.
I wake up. Footsteps. Coming quickly up the stairs. Keys jingling, one is inserted into the keyhole. It is turned. The door opens, it screeches, the hinges really need to be oiled. Footsteps coming closer. A click and bright light fills the room. Footsteps. I turn towards the sound.
The chapatis were quite flexible I confess. They were willing to make love to any type of stew in my mouth. The chapatis however, had a romantic attachment to beef stew. Thus, if mum made beef stew. It was not uncommon for suspicious sounds bordering on the sexual to emanate from my being. I literally had no control over myself when eating mama’s chapatis.
A love story, gone horribly wrong. A corpse, an older lover and the threat of jail.
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.
He opened my door, winked, then walked steadily to his car.
As the door closed on his back, it took everything not to shout and tell him I loved him.
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.
We did it just like on TV. That first kiss was more teeth than lips but we managed. It really was a Physics problem. And once you understood how to use both your noses as fulcrums, you could settle in for a long and mostly enjoyable kiss. The only problem were my hands. They kept reaching out to her blouse.
She is on my bed. Her left leg is over mine and she is telling me she loves me. Yes, she has a boyfriend but it is me she loves. She will leave him. She just hasn't figured out how to do it. He is working in the big city. He sends her money every now and then. He doesn't ask for much. He only wants to see her once every month. I never ask what happens when she goes there. It is always the last Sunday of the month. He always sends her fare and some spare change in case she needs to buy something while traveling. Sometimes he calls her at night, when she is sleeping over at my place. He says her voice makes him sleep a little better. Just before he ends every call, he asks her.
For now though, he feels a new dialogue happening in his pants. One he particularly enjoys. She will feel it too. She will reach out to grab it. Gently at first then....
She will grab the back of his neck. His breathing will quicken. His ears will grow just a little bit hotter. She will stop kissing him. She will draw back. Look him straight in the eye, and say happily, I like you. She will kiss him again. And again. And again. A really small part of him will want to lift one leg up and lean into the kiss. Just a small part.....
"Cool, see you tomorrow," he grunts, then adds "goodbye babe." Then he ends the call. I am shell shocked. He did not give me a chance to correct him.
This is the first time a man has called me babe. I am not too sure if this is something I should tell my wife. Should I call him and ask him to clarify? Was it a mistake? Does he think I am a baby? Or did something in my voice give him indications that I am a hot babe? I call him again, I cannot live with the suspense. I need to know what he meant. He does not pick up my call. I'm I a baby or a babe?
It is true now. That every red blooded Kikuyu man has hankered after a Luo woman at least once in his life. It is not a love or desire that can be easily explained away with words. No, it is deeper. It is in the way they step, and their waists wiggle like Nam Lolwe … Continue reading Why you should love a Luo woman
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.
She said, "goodbye love." She then left immediately. His world broke. He knew she was serious when she left. A part of him knew it. I ask him, how did it feel when she was walking out? Like God had left him. Like everything good that ever happened to him was leaving with her.
There's nothing particularly special about the building. It smells like ass. A troublesome scent, especially in light of Uncle Ezekiel's forays into banning anything remotely related to the African bum.
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.
When I leave for work, she walks me to the car. I ask her, "nikuletee nini?" She says, "kitu yoyote mzuyii." This is the reason the house is filled with silly trinkets. She's always happy with whatever I get her. A habit I'm hoping her mother will pick up.
I have erectile dysfunction. It hit me like a brick the first time. I had finally managed to get Achieng' to come over to my place. She was a difficult one Achieng'. She took a lot of convincing. Achieng', was and still is very easy on the eyes, with an ass that felt like Whitney … Continue reading Men who limp
I've always thought of how it feels for a girl to kiss a girl. Cherry lips kissing blood red lips. One's lips are strawberry flavored while the other's have some chocolatey infused goodness with hints of mint. Is there an explosion of taste in one's mouth?
On Kampala road I meet a long line of women. Scantily dressed, with their nether regions winking at the moon. The moon blushes, and hides behind some clouds. They stand strategically at the doors of motels that charge between 100-300 bob for an hour....
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.
We grew up watching the TV series Suits, Boston Legal and White Collar. So forgive us, if we thought our first jobs would be in swanky offices that smelt of new currency. Earning a salary north of Ksh. 50,000 which came with a girlfriend who called me every morning to tell me she loved me.
Instead, I found myself in industrial area. Getting intimate with sacks of relief food at the UNICEF Warehouses.
I have always loved girls with smoky eyes. Not thick thighs, just the eyes. I never quite understood why. Perhaps its because my best friends ex had those sort of eyes. And I always wanted to bed her.
He increases the tempo a bit. The moan escapes her lips without warning. She asks him to stop, he does not. Instead, he moves from one foot to the other. She thinks that of all the things this man can do well....
It has been 15 minutes now and the bus has moved only 9 inches. The city smells like the midnight moon drenched in 37 liters of water...The smell has a name, husk I think. An Indian once told me that the smell of rain falling on hot soil did things for him, a woman's touch could not. We are no longer friends with that gentleman.
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.
My first and only suggestion is to add the amount of alcohol in the Mojito. It is immoral to put a drink in any man's hand that will not give him a slight buzz...
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.
She tells me she misses him. Especially when she sees how much I resemble him. I ask her if she thinks I am as handsome as he was. She laughs, and heads out to call the doctor. Women….always avoiding questions. At the door she pauses, looks at me and says “If he was here, he would want you to fight to get well.” She runs out before I can say anything. It is her way of telling me to stay with her.
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.
It is a bit sunny today, a stark contrast to the rains that have been falling vigorously this past few weeks. On a normal Saturday, the girls would be in class reading or at least pretending to be reading. The more enterprising ones would be at the school nurse, pretending to be sick. Just so … Continue reading If mama was here
The first time he kissed her. It was raining. He said he had just been walking past the girl’s hostel when it started to rain. He did not have a sweater. He had come to her room. He only wanted to keep warm until the rain passed.
He sips his beer again. His friends are still laughing but slower this time. They have not noticed his absence from them. He stands up, pretending to go to the washrooms. He instead heads to his car.
I remember the way he got my attention. Sneeky at first. He would comment on some of my posts on Facebook. I ignored him. So he found me on Instagram and sent me a Direct Message. Guess what his opening line was....
Hadithi Hadithi 