BY ANTONY MAINA

#newstory

I once had a sugar mammy that was bang jealous and dramatic. She never entertained me when I went out to fall in love with girls of my age. I could not afford to maintain relationships with any girlfriend. I don’t know how she used to find out. Whenever she did, She would cause drama or threaten to cut her financial support if I kept on seeing the girl.

This was offbeat, unlike sugar mammies’ natures. It wasn’t what I thought I would find in our relationship. I raved in the anticipation of an open relationship devoid of emotional commitments. I had read, heard, and watched sugar mammy and sponsor stories. They never got emotionally entangled with their sugar boys and slay queens. All they wanted was deep tissue massage and the sugar boy’s company. In the exchange, they would financially pamper the boy or the girl. Sometimes, I had heard, sugar mammies were sufficiently philanthropic to the extent that they gave their sugar boys money to spend on their girlfriends. Some days, they gave their sugar boys time to spend with their girlfriends.

Josephine was the exact opposite. She never disclosed if she wanted my love, but she never wanted me to have girlfriends or fall in love with girls of my age. Her degree of jealousy sometimes made her volatile and emotionally violent. Sometimes bang childish. She acted like a teenage jilted lover experiencing a heartbreak for the first time ever.

One day, two months after we started our symbiotic relationship, she took me out of my Lumumba Drive one-bedroom on a shopping spree in TRM’s Carrefour. The shopping was smooth. I was pushing the trolley, while she picked all that I asked for. Well, until a young girl appeared in one of our shopping rows.

She was dressed in a generous kitenge bralette and a booty short that was sufficiently philanthropic to reveal her butt cheeks when she bent. She appeared on almost every row that we moved into. And each time she appeared on our row, I would stop to stare and admire the beauty that she flaunted to my lewd eyes.

My lust kinda infuriated my Josephine. She pulled me aside with an incensed face like a mother would pull a rogue kid in a supermarket and asked me to return everything that we had picked on their shelves. ‘We are leaving,’ she announced. She stormed out of the mall as I returned the goods we had picked. In the process, while I was alone, I traced the girl then flashed the latest iPhone that Josephine bought me. The sight of the phone was enough to earn her number, I presumed.

I joined Josephine in her BMW. She was still maddened and refused to talk to me for three minutes. I serenade my questions with sweet words, ‘Sweetheart, my love et al. They promptly elevated her spirit to finally engage me in a conversation. She asked me outrightly if I liked the girl. I denied, harder than Peter the disciple.

‘Just be honest, Sakwah. I know I am too old for your love, and I will understand if you crave the warmth of younger skin.’ I stood my ground and lied to her that her age was just a number and that I loved her nonetheless.

‘Why can’t I just find a man that loves me alone,’ she started lamenting and crying. I was forced to calm her down. I lied that my stares were inspired by the wonder of meeting a girl dressed so skimpily in a public shopping place where people frequented with kids. ‘I was looking at that girl, dressed that way in a public place, without an ounce of shame. Who raised her? Doesn’t she know that people frequent malls in the company of their kids to come looking almost naked?’ She agreed with what I said, and together, we cursed, slut-shamed, and insulted the girl.

In the TRM’s parking lot, she narrated to me how her late husband used to cheat on her with younger girls, and how that used to hurt her. She burdened me with all his infidelity stories and how that made her hate men. ‘I also used to be young and beautiful, you know.’ she added, much calmer. She leaned towards me and showed me her phone photos when she was younger and asked for my thoughts.

She used to be beautiful, very beautiful, but age had wiped her youthful beauty away. Still, I was forced to lie to her that even at her advanced age, she still maintained her youthful beauty. This, to win her favor back. In the end, at the end of my complimentary lies, she took me to Garden City Mall to shop.

‘Young girls will just use you, confuse you and hurt you,’ she kept on saying, warning me to stay away from girls. This situation was confusing because I didn’t want such a relationship with her. She was 34 years my senior. Her last-born daughter was only 3 years my junior and her second born, a son, was my age.

Back home, I got hooked on the young girl that I had slut-shamed. We exchanged texts from time to time. At one point, she asked me about the women in my company at the mall. I lied that Josephine was my mother.

The girl stayed at Lumumba Drive and went to USIU university. After a few weeks of wooing and lying to her, she agreed to visit me on the Saturday of the week. I couldn’t have been happier, at least I needed a weekend away from Josephine. I cleaned my house, cleaned my sheets, prepared a chicken stew, and bought some condoms in preparation for the grand visitation.

Patricia turned up dressed to kill my senses, and looked sluttier, if I am allowed to use that adjective to describe her dressing.

She twanged and tried so hard to sound like the Americans, but her Kirinyaga Kikuyu accent betrayed her big time. She sounded like a cocktail of the Jamaican Patwa and the Nigerian Pidgin, more than she sounded like the American Twang. And she talked about the American politics, weather, celebrities, and American football. I was excited when she asked me if I was a fan of football. She quickly wiped away the fun when she said that Tom Brady is the greatest football player of all time and that she was waiting for the greatest football event, the Super Bowl. Who follows the American football outside North America? I should have kicked her out of my house at that time, yet I tolerated her because I desperately craved the warmth of a younger skin.

As we ate, she started watching Wild N’ Out. I could not get any of the jokes that made her laugh out wildly.

Unfortunately, our theater session and date were interrupted by a knock, soft as it sounded. I did not expect anyone to be visiting me on that day.

On the door, Josephine stood with a wicked smile. I froze. The freeze on my face widened the smile on her face. She was dressed like an old-schooled rich woman. She walked into the house and called Patricia, ‘msichana wangu umetembelean kijana yangu’ when greeting her.

Patricia quickly sat upright, in a lady-like manner, and tried in vain to pull her short skirt down to cover her yellow Kirinyaga thighs. Josephine was quick to introduce herself as my mother. Another surprise. I had anticipated a lashing out, shouts, or a fight between the two or the three of us. It was an awkward situation, which Josephine momentarily pulled me away from when she sent me to get her fruits and soft drinks from the grocery shop a few blocks away.

A lot went through my mind. What was she up to? Why didn’t she notify me that she was coming like she always did? Why was she acting all cool? Had she got a whiff of my intentions to bed Patricia?

I rushed to the grocery and when I came back, I found Patricia crying, walking down the stairs on her way out of our apartment. I held her hand to stop her. She pushed me away and kept on walking down, cussing and hissing with rage and anger. I ran after her and blocked her way.

‘What is up, Patricia?’

‘Your mother is a sicko, that is what is up, b’tch.’

‘What has she done?’

‘She is so tribalist and so archaic she should have been born during the reign of the Mwene Mtapa Empire.’

‘What has she done to you?’

‘She called me a gold digger chasing after you because your mother is rich. F*ck her and your tribe for thinking that all girls from my tribe are gold diggers. I just wanted to vibe with you, ain’t interested in your shit. My dad is rich. Does she think that I am at USIU through a harambee or scholarships?’

‘I am sorry, Patricia. We can talk this through.’

‘I am not shitting with you anymore. Grow some up, mama’s boy. Ain’t tripping with a n*gga that tags her mama on a date. F*ck that shit, Corrins.’ All along, she vented in a perfect N. American Twang until she had to pronounce my name, Collins. That is when the American Twang drew her line and the Kirinyaga accent took over. From there henceforth, she changed her intonation and tone, making her sound like a peak Joyce Wamama.

She stormed out of the apartment, ranting and hurling all kinds of insults. She had picked some of the insults from the Wild N Out show. I ran back to my house and found Josephine pacing around the sitting room. On one of the couches were my clothes bundled up inside a shopping bag. That is all I owned when we met. She owned the apartment. Her son used to live in the house that I had inherited. I moved into it after he moved to study abroad.

What followed was a spirited effort to apologize to her, and accuse Patricia of seducing me. ‘She only came over to hang out, nothing serious, darling. You are all that I love.’

‘You are using the phone that I got you to seduce girls, and use my house to impress them.’ She went into another lamentation, accusing men of using her and wondering why all her life she never had a man that loved her alone. They lied to me that older women are calmer. Sometimes, she sounded like my mother when scolding me.

Eventually, she agreed to let me stay, and I promised to stay away from young girls. Well, I did, I tried to do, but Akinyi was just too good to ignore. Akinyi was voluptuous. She exhumed a unique vibrancy that was too attractive to ignore. She was romantic, she was beautiful and has a curvaceous body that I loved flaunting to my friends.

It wasn’t hard to convince Akinyi to love me. I flaunted everything that Josephine bought me, including her cars. Sometimes she allowed me to drive her cars. But there was trouble, I could not invite Akinyi into my house because I was scared Josephine would catch us again. I used to visit her home instead. Initially, she didn’t have a problem inviting me into her house. As our love grew stronger, however, she got weary of a man visiting her home without visiting his. She started complaining and questioning why I did not invite her to my house.

On some occasions, she shared Kenyans memes that mocked and ridiculed men with the habit of visiting their girlfriend’s house. On another day, she shared a video of a Ugandan man who had been shot dead by his lover’s husband after the husband found him in his bed, with his wife, and in his home. She serenaded the video with an ‘Ogopa nyumba yenye haulipi rent’ caption. Eventually, I yielded to her mind-games and nags to visit my home.

Akinyi arrived armed with a large handbag to spend the weekend at my home. She was wowed by how I had furnished it. She loved my TV, my home theater, and almost everything. Every time she asked me how I had amassed the properties at such a young age, including the cars, I always told her, ‘ni God maze, and hard word.’ Indeed, I used to work hard to impress Josephine to get everything I asked for.

Akinyi took several photos in my house to flaunt its opulence to her online friends. One of her posts boasted of how her boyfriend was rich, and how her hard work had earned her a rich boyfriend. ‘Rich attracts rich, hard work attracts hard work.’ she said.

I left the sitting room to blend some fruit juice in the kitchen, raving in the compliments that she had posted about me. Rudely, my perambulating thoughts were disrupted by a knock on the door. Akinyi rushed to the door to welcome the visitor, acting like the woman of the house that she was.

She rushed into my kitchen to say that Mama Fua was at the door to clean my clothes. I had not invited anyone to do my laundry on that weekend, although I had a mama fua. I was shocked to find Josephine standing in my sitting room, looking like a 2000s Mama Fua.

When I emerged into the sitting room, Josephine said, ‘sorry, nimechelea kukuja. Mtoto alikuwa mgongwa kiasi. Nitolee nguo za kufua nimalize haraka haraka nirudi nyumbani.’

I suggested that my Mama Fua goes back home to tend to her sick kid. Akinyi pulled me inside the kitchen like a wife should do and gave me a scolding down. ‘What if the mama fua needed the money to take the sick baby to the hospital?’

Reluctantly, and praying so hard, I went into the bedroom and piled my dirty laundry in the bathroom. True to her identity, Josephine went down to wash my clothes. I was tensed, and Akinyi was sick mad when we were left alone in the sitting room because I had invited a mama fua in the house when I knew she was coming over. She needed the day just for us.

‘Na by the way, let me give the mama fua the clothes which I came wearing to clean them.’ I protested. I did not want them to spend time in one place. I was trying to figure out how to get Akinyi out of my house.

She went and changed into my T-shirt, the same that Josephine wore whenever she was in my house, and took the dress she came in with to Josephine.

I don’t know what transpired in the washroom, and nothing out of the ordinary had happened to alert me to a possible quarrel. However, when Akinyi came into the sitting room, she was carrying her handbag in her hands. She was leaving.

I stopped her and asked her what was going on. ‘You are a cheat, Sakwah.’ She accused. ‘I took my dress to your mama fua and she thanked me for being decent enough not to burden her with my underwear like most of the girls that you bring in the house. She even said that the last girl whom you brought in the house last week asked your mama fua to wash her pantie with blood stains. Disgusting. Is that why you have been stalling when I asked to visit you? Because you invite ill-mannered ladies in your house every weekend to force an old woman to clean their panties.’

She hipped insults on my miserable self and dumped me. Some insults were in Dholuo. I loved Akinyi, so much. I followed her outside to try and salvage my relationship. She couldn’t listen to me.

Back in the house, I met my belongings inside a shopping bag sitting at the door. Josephine pushed me outside the door and locked the door from the inside.

Akinyi witnessed the embarrassing ordeal. She was back to pick a toothbrush that she used to align and design her facial baby hair. Which she had forgotten in the house. She watched in shock and disgust as her rich boyfriend’s true self was aired in the public. She literally ran away after learning that Josephine was my sugar mammy, and she owned everything that I flaunted.

On that occasion, Josephine kicked me out of the house, for good, and forever. Later on, I came to learn that she installed an invisible phone cloning application into the phone that she bought me. The application was able to transfer all the information from my phone into one of her phones. She had been monitoring whom I chatted with, talked to, and everything else I did with the phone.

I became homeless and more miserable than she had found me.

DRAMATIC EX BY ANTONY MAINA

You guys haven’t met a dramatic (ex) girlfriend. My friend came face to face with one real drama queen. He had just dumped the girl, and barely a week, he was in the arms of another girl.

Unbeknownst to him, the day the new girl visited, is the same day his ex-girlfriend and her park of 5 attacker girls had planned to visit him to ‘pick her clothes.’

They lied to the security guard that they were escorting their friend to pick up clothes. They knocked on the door. The new girl opened the door, and she was quickly met with a devastating kick that send her sprawling across the floor. This new girl was the reason why my homie dumped his ex.

One, two, three kicks and slaps here and there, the new girl scampered for her safety and ran away. They chased her. While Ken, my friend, was still coming to terms with what was happening, the six girls descended upon him like a swum of bees and unleashed the terror of their girlfriend’s heartbreak on my friend.

Slaps, kicks, shoves, punches here and there, and my friend managed to free himself and ran into his bedroom and locked himself in the bedroom. Being a man, Ken couldn’t scream or call for help.

The 6 deadly and bloodthirsty amigos stayed in the sitting room waiting for Ken until an idea struck the ex’ mind. My friend had left his phone on his TV stand while it was charging. It is a common habit that men to charge their phones whenever they have their girls around. The ex-girlfriend remembered his password and accessed it. She scrolled on his phonebook and dialed my friend's mother. When the mum received the phone, the ex faked a cry and announced that my friend was dead. She asked the mum to start making funeral arrangements.

She called his sister and a few relatives as well. She accessed his WhatsApp and posted on his status that my friend, Ken, was dead.

They left the phone and everything else and walked away from the scene of the crime. When my friend was convinced that everything was calm, he crawled out of his hiding to very many phone notifications, and messages and phone calls from friends and family saying how they were going to miss him.

His family’s and friends’ statuses were reading, ‘RIP ken’ and accompanied by nice captions and his photos.

Bwana, you guys have never met a dramatic girlfriend with equally dramatic friends.

One day, I sent a girl in our girl school a love letter. Our girl school was only a fence away from our school. Unfortunately, out of excitement, she opened the letter in her classroom to read in the presence of her friends. A teacher walked into her classroom and caught her reading the letter while her friends cheered on her. The letter was confiscated. It was traced back to me.

I was summoned to the staff room, whooped, and handed a two weeks suspension.

Along the way, while traveling back home, I was scared, nervous, and apprehensive of what was to befall me if I landed home to serve a suspension. Despite being very accommodating and friendly, my aunt was a disciplinarian when it mattered. She never hesitated to flog my bum if I was engaged in mischief.

She was surprised to see me back home barely two weeks after leaving home after half-term.

‘What is it again? School fees?’ she asked.

‘No,’ I responded. I was unsure of how to break the news to her. She had a temper when she needed to be. When her temper broke loose, she was capable of anything, including dismantling one’s dental formula. For this reason, I stood as far away from her while breaking the news.

‘What is it, then?’ She repeated.

‘I have been sent home.’

‘I can clearly see that. But for what reason?’ She insisted.

‘I have been suspended,’ I said calmly. I was trembling.

‘You have been suspended again? Do you ever learn? What is wrong with you kid?’ She raised her voice. The anger in her voice was mounting. Right away, I knew that was going to be a flogging day. She started walking towards me with the finger of her hands trembling. That was the venom of her anger that used to make her hands shake. She always shook her hands when she was about to slap me.

‘Why were you suspended?’ She asked, an inch closer to me, and visibly ready to slap my face.

‘For writing a girl a letter,’ I replied.

She stopped in her stride suddenly before she could have stroked the demons out of my face. She froze and turned to face the other direction where I couldn’t see her face. When she turned to face me, there was a silly smile on her face. The smile was confusing because a second earlier, she was angry and ready to slash my face into two.

‘Is she beautiful?’ She asked. I was more confused.

I nodded my head, ‘yeah.’

‘Do you love her?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Does she love you back?’

‘Yes, she does.’ I said, gaining courage eventually.

‘Then go and change your clothes. That was not reason enough to suspend you.’ I was very happy. I was relieved. We spent much of that suspension period talking about sex; Are you already sexually active? Are you using protection? Are you careful? She asked all kinds of questions about my sex life and all the nitty-gritty of sex education.

After two weeks, she accompanied me back to school. I was supposed to face the disciplinary committee consisting of my class teacher, the deputy principal, and other members of the school’s disciplinary committee.

When we stepped into the office, all eyes turned to my aunt. The way she was dressed, her youthfulness etc etc.

‘Mum, your nephew is not taking his education seriously. He spends time thinking about girls all the time instead of concentrating on what brought him to school. He wastes the money you pay as school fees. I want him to read the letter himself. I want you to learn what your nephew does in class while serious students are studying in class.’

The deputy reached one of the drawers of his office desk and pulled out a file. He pulled out the letter, written on a decorated writing pad and still bearing the perfume I had sprayed on it before sending it to my madam.

He handed me the letter. ‘Read it to your aunt. She needs to know what you do in class instead of studying.’ There was a seriousness in the DP’s face that was scary.

There was dead silence in the room as I fumbled to read the letter. Everyone’s eyes were on me. This made me more nervous and shaky. Before reading the letter, I looked at my aunt’s face. There was some rare calmness on it.

I cleared my voice and read,

‘Walapaz Clara.

I hope this letter finds you with the same beautiful face that I last saw during the drama festivals. Since that day, I haven’t stopped thinking about you. I have not slept because I spend the nights staring at the stars, hoping to see your star. If you look at the sky tonight, the brightest of the stars will be me staring down at you. Please wave at me…’ My aunt coughed at that moment.

‘Sorry,’ she apologized. She reached for her purse to retrieve a handkerchief. She wiped her eyes. I watched my aunt and right away I knew she was fighting laughter. Probably she found my letter to be hilarious or something. The cough was an indication of the battles within her mouth.

‘Go on,’ the DP said.

‘I have not eaten since I last met you because the only hunger that I feel in my body is caused by the longingness to meet you again.’ At that point, at that specific vibe, my aunt had no choice but to burst out into a pearl of laughter. She is the kind of person who has naturally long waves of laughter, like Gidi and Ghost. She doesn’t hold back when laughing.

My teachers were stunned. They wanted the matter treated with the seriousness that it deserved, while my aunt turned it into a frivolous moment. That infuriated them more.

Her laughter was efficacious in making me laugh as well. I placed my hands on my mouth, faced away from the teachers, and fought the laughter. I did not want to anger them, for I knew this would have made them increase the intensity of the punishment that awaited me. I stopped laughing immediately.

‘Mum, we are asking you to treat this matter with the seriousness that it deserves. Your son has been reported to be sleeping in class during class lessons. Teachers are complaining that he sleeps a lot while they are teaching. Now I understand why. Because while others are sleeping during the night, he stays awake staring at the stars. Your nephew must be punished to stop this habit.’ My class teacher said in abid to restore sanity in the room.

‘I am sorry for my behavior. I agree with you. He must be punished before these habits persist.’ My aunt said after wiping the tears from her eyes, tears caused by the laughter. I was punished. I was whooped properly.

After the punishment, I was sent out of the room to allow other students to face the committee. While I was alone with my aunt, she resumed her laughter. ‘Dude, that vibe was strong. Ati, you haven’t eaten because the only hunger that you feel is caused by the longiness to meet her? Who says that to a girl?’ Bro, aren’t you the one who cleared my fridge the other day? Now you are lying to a girl that you don’t feed because of her?’ We started laughing again.

‘And your class teacher believes that you are sleeping in class because you spent your nights staring at the stars to locate your girl’s star?’ She laughed again. ‘You must stop sleeping in class, though, right?’

‘Sure. I will stop.’

‘Next time, tell your girl to read the letters from her dormitory. That is what we used to do. The risk of being caught reading a love letter in the dorm is less than when one reads in class.’ She advised, gave me pocket money, and left.

The next term, I was suspended again for a more serious mistake. The DP was very particular when writing the suspension letter. ‘Your son must be accompanied back to school by a more serious guardian to face the disciplinary committee after 2 weeks. The committee will not listen to his case if he reports to school with a guardian that is not serious about your son’s discipline.’

ANTONY MAINA

Last evening, my cousin and I left the house to do light house hunting in my hood. He moved in to live with me, and I thought we needed a bigger house.

We found a very beautiful, modern apartment. It has a single bell knob outside the gate. We figured out that the bell rang inside the caretaker's or security guard's house.

We rang the bell. Soon after, a man with an indifferent and gloomy face appeared at the gate. He looked so lugubrious, so furious, so cavalier, that I started suspecting that the bell must have pulled him from the warmth of a Sunday evening snack.

He did not talk to us right away. He looked at us, almost scheming like, from our head to toes. We were wearing Crocs and sweatpants. It was on a Sunday evening. We had been watching football, Tottenham Vs Aston Villa game. The first half was boring that is why we decided to leave the house to do house hunting before the crunch Manchester City Vs Liverpool game.

It is also January. The roads are dusty and windy. Naturally, we looked ragged. Our feet were dusty after making several rounds around our hood. Our faces and lips were cracked from the heat of the sun. Justifiably, we looked like street urchin, and perhaps that is the reason why the man looked at us in such a mean way.

"Hi," I greeted him.
"Hi," he forced the greetings. "Mh?" He said, signaling us to lay down the reason why we rang the bell.
"We are looking for a house."

He scrutinized us again, deeply, and said with a hoity toity and patronizing tone, "hakuna bedsitter hapa." It almost sounded like a threat, or he expected us to take it as a threat and walk away.

Damn. I look at my cousin's face and he was not hiding his shock. He looked at me and we burst out into a loud pearl of laughter. Man.
The man gestured to walk back into the house. "How do you know that we are looking for bedsitters?" I asked him.

"I was just saying, as a by the way. Just in case we don't want to waste each other's time." He gave us his back.

"We are looking for a two bedroom." He looked at us with intensity again. He was unsure whether we were serious or just bluffing. Eventually, he opened the gates and allowed us in.

The ground floor was reserved for parking. Man, the cars in the lot were insane. There was a white Land cruiser Prado parked next to a Subaru Forester XT, that was parked next to a dark blue BMW, that was next to red Mazda CX.

When I saw the parking lot, for a moment, I understood the man's point of judgement. First, we walked to the gate on foot. Two, we exclaimed when we saw the cars parked in the lot. We were like two kids in an exclusive toy store.

ADOLESCENT VANGEANCE

BY ANTONY MAINA

When i was in class six, i fell in love with a class eight girl and she also happened to be our school head girl.

i had just turned adolescent and on the same night of adolescence , i discovered that, apart from passing out urine, i could get into a woman to give me a better sensation than the one i got when urinating.

so for weeks, i contemplated on how to get to racheal, a 15 year old girl with sweet young round protruding breasts like those of Arianna Grande. ohh my! she got me crazier anytime she addressed the assembly. i erected anytime i saw her, it is during those erections that i realised that my d**k had started expanding not because of urine but because rachael used to turn me on..

one day, armed with DB Tony dictionary (my own edition) and west life's songs, i drafted a romantic letter to her. a letter i believed was too hot and romantic for her to turn me down.

two weeks i waited for her reply in vain. i was almost giving up until one day she felt philanthropic enough to reply to my letter.

I remember that day i came to school only to find a mammoth of pupils reading the same letter i had sent her. She stuck the letter on the door of my class room using glue. That was not all, she had marked my letter and awarded me points like an english teacher would mark a composition.

and like an english teacher, she added remarks below the letter....

----> please check on your grammar and spelling.

--> improve your handwriting, even doctors wouldn't entertain your handwriting.

that morning was the most embarrassing morning of my life. i had nowhere to hide my face in school. i sneaked out of school to home, where i spent two days planning on how to take my revenge on the girl and hiding away from friends who would lough at me for receiving a public rejection.......

BY ANTONY MAINA

#newstory

After dropping out of campus, I briefly worked as a security guard in an apartment somewhere in Ruaka. I would perhaps be a security guard right now had I not quit because of what I witnessed or what the tenants made me do. One of the things that tenants turned me into was an errand boy. Some of the works I was asked to do were outrageous, some were flat-out criminal, and some were raunchy.

Initially, I loved partaking in such small errands because of the tokens I received from them. A generous tenant would pay me one or two hundred shillings for washing his/her car or refilling their gas. I loved doing them because it was from these payments that I afforded my fare and lunch or supper.

Some tenants paid me using food, fruits, or drinks. One or two tenants had unrestrained tendencies of paying me using unconventional means. One such tendency started with the D1 lady. Her sink blocked. She invited me to help her unblock it. When I walked into her house, I ended up playing a role that mirrored the title of a video on a website that you love visiting; “A plumber helps the housewife to unblock the sink. Or “The lawnmower trims the housewife’s outgrown hair.”

Most of the tenants were very generous when it came to compensating me for service or work tat I had done. Apart from one mean lady. She used to live in the house on the second floor. I had a huge crush on this babe. She was in her mid-twenties, or early twenties, or thereabouts.

She was plump, with a round face and a sizeable but. She rarely came out of the house. Unless she was picking up a delivery from her boda boda delivery guy. She loved wearing loose brief shorts and busters that enhanced the shape of her bre+sts every time she came down to pick the deliveries.

She lived alone most of the time. Occasionally, her father visited, but only over the weekend. She barely gave me attention, as other tenants did. For a very long time, I wished she did. One day, she did.

I remember the first time she invited me into her house, I was listening to my favorite radio show, Patanisho. I received a call from a strange number. The call invited me into house B3. Right away, it clicked in my mind that my crush had invited me into her house.

On my way to her house, I imagined all the possible reasons why she had invited me to her house. And none was as appealing as the thought of the title “The lonely busty tenant gets company from the security guard.”

Lewd thoughts went through my mind. They excited me. She opened her door in a bralette and a ragged booty-short. My mind went wild. The first thing that I spotted was a large wall picture of a five-star general framed on the wall. It was her father’s picture. It was so large and conspicuously mounted opposite the door for anyone entering the house to view it. In the photo, the general was holding a gun.

Once I was standing in the sitting room, she handed me one thousand, one hundred and fifty shillings to pick up a parcel from a place called Denderu. The one fifty was my boda boda fare, while the one thousand was the payment for the parcel that she didn’t name. She had not mentioned any form of payment. I knew and prayed that the payment would be in the form of your favorite website’s video title.

At the pickup point, a guy in dreadlocks came out of an old bedsitter apartment and handed me a mid-sized pharmacy tablet dispensing envelope.

I did not check what was inside the envelope. Once I was back in her house, shockingly, she opened the parcel, pulled out two sticks of weed, and stretched her hands to hand them to me. I declined her offer and said, “Huwa sichomi.”. My revelation that I don’t smoke seemed to disgust her. She frowned. I kept on standing there waiting for payment.

“How am I supposed to pay you then? I don’t have money with me.” I wondered how the daughter of a general could lack money to pay me. She didn’t have the money. She promised to send me money as soon as she had some. I left her house disappointed. In my mind, I blacklisted her from the list of tenants that were eligible for my help.

A week later, she called my phone again. She had not paid me yet. But as a security guard, I always heeded all the calls from tenants. It was a rule. I entered the house and found her holding the same amount as before. She extended her hand, as before, and said, “as before.”

I protested and reminded her that she had not paid me for my previous job. She looked at me with a grimace, with violent sadness and disgust, as if she did not believe that I could turn her request down. She turned her face and stared at the photo of the general. I followed her eyes. The general’s photo was staring at me, menacingly. It always did stare at me regardless of the position I was standing at.

“My father will not be happy that you have been selling me weed,” she blackmailed. She shifted her eyes to a different location. With that threat, I picked the money and left to pick her weed. This became a routine. She sent me to pick up her drugs and paid me with threats. I was the poorest peddler in the history of peddlers.

Sometimes I wonder if there is a heaven for Nairobi Weemen.

BY TONY MAINA

Kui made a living from surreptitiously spiking men’s drinks in a club in Kasarani and robbing them of their valuables; wallets, watches, and phones. She had perfected the art. One day, the club’s management informed her that she could no longer work from their club because the police were on the club’s heels following persistent complaints from customers. They fired her.

A devastated Kui sought advice from her friend who had been in the trade for ages. Her friend suggested that she resort to the traditional form of prostitution; parading herself on the streets for selection. She was to guise herself as a street hooker, get picked for a night at the man’s house, sedate him and rob his home while he slept.

Kui lamented how she was no longer going to get free club meals, drinks, and compliments from club perverts. ‘Some of the men will cook for you in their house, some will order food and drinks for you. Remember, at home, you won’t be robbing wallets and phones alone. There are laptops, watches, shoes et al. Men who pick women on the streets drive expensive cars. They are sexually starved rich men seeking an escape from the sexual boredom from their wives.’

On this day, her first night on the streets, Kasarani was devastating cold. She endured the freezing cold night in her mini-skirt and an off-shoulder, V-nicked tumbo-cut top. At around midnight, when she thought she could not endure the cold anymore, a Subaru parked on the other side of the road. As other hookers ran to the car to negotiate with the pervert, she remaining standing unsure of what to do. Scrambling for customers had never been her art. In clubs, it is the men who picked her.

The Subaru man lowered his window and beckoned her. He ignored the other girls. They leered at Kui as she walked with a slow and calculated poise towards the man.

They left the streets towards the man’s house in Sportview Estate, Kasarani. Sportview Estate is the only estate with more rental-houses per SQ KM than bars, clubs, and wines and spirits shops. Kasarani has more alcohol joints than rental houses.

The house was well furnished and spacious. Her eyes darted steadily from the TV to the home theatre, to the laptop on the study table. She was spoilt with the choices to rob once she had sedated the man. She was nervous, and the man noticed it.

Once she was comfortable, the man locked his door and spanked her on his way back to his chair. At that time, the man hadn’t talked or bragged about his car, house, or whatever he owned. That was uncharacteristic of Subaru owners, who have a habit of pronouncing what they own or the price of their Subaru. Subaru owners are the equivalent of Alliance High school alumni. They are capable of walking to a stranger in the washroom of a club and tell him; ‘by the way, I just imported my Subaru recently. What do you drive?’

‘Empty your purse on the table!’ the man said with a cold tone.

‘What?’ Kui struggled to speak, pretending to not have heard what the man had said. It was a whisper.

‘I said empty your purse.’ His voice was colder and authoritative. Kui hesitated. The man leaned back on his chair, pushed his hand between the couch’s cushion, and pulled out a gun. ‘Now, I don’t love repeating myself for the third time.’

Kui emptied her purse on the table. She was horrified at the sight of a gun. ‘Hookers walk with lip bum, a packet of condoms, a mirror, and a comb. What are you doing with a bottle of Rohypnol, a strong sedative?’

Kui nodded her head. ‘I use it after my work. I have been struggling with sleep recently.’

‘And so you thought a drug that makes one sleep for 12 hours was the right pick?’ Kui said nothing. ‘This is not my house. This is a friend’s house whom you sedated and robbed in a club two weeks ago. He lost important contacts with the phone. He lost a business worth millions. I have been on your trail for days. I am contracted to murder you.’ The man cocked his gun. The cocking sound startled Kui. Her blood froze. For the first time, she noticed scary scars on the man’s face. They were freshly healed.

‘What would you like to say or do before I shoot your head?’ He raised his hand to aim his gun at Kui’s face. Kui did not winch a muscle. She did not respond to his question. He repeated his question while walking closer to her.

‘To kiss you,’ she said. Her voice was scratchy. ‘You seem a troubled man savored with solitude. Before I die, I want to show you some love.’ She added. The man blinked; emotionally. ‘Can I?’ She asked while moving closer to the man. He moved backward. For a second, the man ogled her cleavage. He blinked.

‘Stay where you are, or I will shoot you!’ He raised his hand to aim at her forehead. ‘I will blow your brain if you take another step!’

Kui gestured to strip. The man stopped her. ‘You are fresh from prison.’ She whispered seductively.

‘How do you know that?’ The man asked. He was unsteady.

‘I can tell it on your face. I just want to kiss you and give you what you have missed while in prison.’ She moved closer to him. He did not move back. His hand was unsteady. She pouted her lips, moved them towards his, and kissed him. When she pulled her lips away, the man was dizzy. His vision was blurred, his eyes heavy. In a short time, the gun fell from his hand. Kui grabbed him before he fell on the floor. She lay him on the couch and covered his sedated and sleepy body with a duvet that she picked from the bedroom.