BEAUTY PROBLEMS episode 13

“Rita, have u recently seen the other dashing man who vibed you ?” Tracy asked

“I am vibed all the time, how can I remember a random guy”

“Twar’eri, show off just, I mean that guy who found you in the common room some evening”
“No, why?”
“Saw him at Gabiro’s last night”
“Good for you”, she turned the sleeve of her blouse inside out and moved over it with the hot iron not bothered.

“Tell me you are not jelasy”
“Why should I be?”
“Come on babe, guy is hot and loaded, I know you are interested. He even told me
he is single”

“You really amuse me Tracy, if you cared to ask, you would know that I love my guys strictly white, 6’7, six packed, soccer players or you know such nice actors with long hair, he must have a real deep voice, you know like a deep hoarse baritone; fast sports care and you know like super romantic”

“Hehehe, I will volunteer to get you some clay, but on a serious note, Goldie is tall and generally good looking…with that accent of Kabale, how will you get a white guy, just tell him to bleach”, she sipped and rubbed the dew off the cold glass, ruffled through her hair and slowly willed the hang over to dissipate.
“ You are the one who was with him last night, you probably slept with him and now you are flossing your left overs”

“There goes the jealous co-wife. Relax, I just took a few shots off his tab but nothing happened, besides it is you he wants, me I like my Bakonjo men, down to earth and all…hehehehe” she stood up and headed to the showers.

‪#‎to‬ be continued
$TOH

BEAUTY PROBLEMS episode 12

He pressed the start button, typed the machine from hibernation and resumed with the coursework. She sat on the bed with a hand mirror applying shades of red and re aligning the arcs above her eyes.

“You don’t even need any make up, besides it’s not like you are going out on a date”, he said this as he inserted page numbers.

“Owaye, bulungi kwefaako, you have to keep the cake hot” she laughed and it sounded like a ring of Christmas carols

He checked his offline thesaurus and replaced the word “lien” with “claim”. He read the leading judgment from the case of Lynn & Main Incorporated against the Naidoos, thought about quoting the ratio decidendi but decided to paraphrase. “ I have even made yours better than mine, hope you don’t beat me”
“Tell me I don’t deserve it, you think the last few minutes were cheap?”

“Pari...maateerai...( he typed as he spelt)...Emphasis on few” he winked at her and she just smiled. "Perfecto dentilitis" such a term must exist somewhere, he thought!

“We both know who should carry that cross. Anyhow, unlike you guys, we just have to …. Our…. And get things done”, she rubbed off a stray scarlet line at the edge of the mouth.

He looked at her with a pinch of empathy. At that time when Adam slept, The hand had picked out the best rib, sewed it with the finest tapestry of sinews and draped it with a flow of smooth brown skin. Her skeleton did not over reach its province and the extensions properly utilized their liberty in proper quantities and at opportune places. Was she heading to the airtime seller, the KFC manager or the gatekeeper?

Most of his friends teased him to be a chapatti and rolex “siika”, or worse a man from jigger ville. He thought himself lucky to have something to offer to someone like Maggie and get a bite off the cherry in return. He felt his conscience come crashing down his spine and jerked out of the stare.

“Return to sender” he said handing the flash disk to Maggie
“It’s nice doing business with you”

“ Pleasure’s all mine. Neera, neera”

‪#‎to‬ be continued
$TOH

Beauty Problems episode 11

She ran her fingers through his hair but he seemed preoccupied with clerkish typing on the QWERTY keyboard. Occasionally she looked at the words filling up the monitor screen between the sky blue background but did not commit her attention entirely. Equity and Trusts was one of those indurate subjects and a coursework on sequestration exacerbated the task for most students.

Munna was arguably the brightest and most hardworking guy in the class no wonder he had printed out the 12 pages of properly cited work in three days, weeks before handing in time.

She was not about to drown her nights in endless law reports and Statutes. So on this drizzly Saturday evening, she went to St. Micheal Hostel to consult with the one authority readily available. He would probably be reading a Biography or something like that and he had always been a reliable friend. She hoped he would as often he did, edit and play around with his own work instead of dictating to her endless legalese and precedents for her to decipher. She knocked and entered, he never locked the door. He turned his head and when he saw her, he said,

“Hi, wassup?"

“Good good” she turned the key and headed to the chair. She wrapped her hands across his neck and let her perfume rub seamlessly to his cheek. He raised his arms and locked them briefly over her hair.

“What are you doing?” she asked

“Just playing some chess”

“Chilling when we are suffering with course work… ah mama”

“Waa, that one was not so complicated, so why not finish it and relax”

“ I will teach you how to relax rather than playing those dull games…naye, please first help me ko oso”

“ No problem, gimme a flash disk”

The weather had done its moiety and so he did not need much convincing. He could feel her foot ascending the outlines of his blue jeans and he clicked Ctrl + S, the Bibliography could wait. Maggie rolled over and unstrapped her tie and dye DVF wrap dress.

‪#‎to‬ be cont…
$TOH

BEAUTY PROBLEMS episode 10

He walked towards the kitchen and the fireplaces were worse than a stone-cold tomb in a sullen graveyard. He opened the fridge to a biting chill of frozen steak and cabbage.

He looked at the sink, clogged with utensils lined with greasy remains of decaying foodstuffs the crumbs of which were attracting a train of black ants. He saw a cockroach jump out of his cup and head down the drain. Chime leaped towards the gullet but he stomped out of the place in time to avoid whitewashing the dining table.

Back in the sitting room, his wife lay curled in the settee with her palms firmly clutching a pillow leaning parallel from chin to belly.

“Sleep, that is all you know”, He shouted scaring her to sitting position. “A married man cannot even get decent breakfast in his own house when the woman is just sleeping in expensive sofas all day and night, do you even know that those things cost an arm and a leg?, but how would you?, a spoilt piece of skirt"
“Shut up your drunken mouth, and don't abuse me like that", she said pointing her index towards his nose, "do you have a maid whom you pay to cook for you, so that you you start shouting like a kasuku?” She retorted

“Look at you, shamelessly abusing a man like me. Did I marry you to increase my water and electricity bills?, What do you do for me for example, you can’t give me a decent night, no food, yet you keep asking me for money?”

“Go me slow sebbo" she stood up, her negligee creased from all angles, " do not think that because by doing you a favour and becoming your wife I can’t do anything else. Don’t forget I was the best in my class and my degree has not molded.”

“Degree indeed, those marks which you got by sleeping with lecturers are the ones you are talking about, hehehe, if you were that bright would you have allowed to become a house wife like a p.5 drop out?, whore just, no wonder you can’t even give birth. You probably murdered all your eggs all that time you aborted with those older men”


“What did you call me?” She dropped back into the seat, a tear rolled on her cheek and she did not bother to wipe it off. “If it was not for you spending all those nights with young girls would you not find your wife waiting?, all you do is come drunk smelling like ammonia and jumping on people like a beast. How can you say I aborted, that is unfair, a lie and you know it. Am I God, am I the one who gives children?” she looked in his eyes and he returned a cold stare, “ it might even be you who cannot...but because I am a woman you are blaming me”

“ There you go again with your theatrics, let me assure you though, I am a man and I can do what I want, when I want, you better be available when I need you and you damn better clean my house and start serving me warm meals. I can get a child elsewhere but I cannot stand a lazy woman in my house, nonsense”. He slammed the door and drove off.

$TOH

BEAUTY PROBLEMS episode 9

        Take me in your arms and release me not,
         To fairyland and sugar candy mounts of yonder,
          Take my soft palm in yours and forbid me not,
           Let all the hallowed beauties gaze in wonder…

“ Rila?” , Tracy knocked on the door. Rita had been going through her morning motions-call it a ritual of reciting a few verses of “Selected Poems by Matsiko Godwin”,

“Yes dear, she answered as she sauntered towards the door, turned the key and handle before letting her friend in. She was yet to take a shower but it was a Saturday so there was no hurry.

She slid the curtain to the left and squinted at the bright rays bouncing off the dressing mirror. Maggie turned to the wall and continued her light steady breathing.

“ Kontango, Kontango, papa kontango..yuwa leegi..yo legi..”, the Askari attempted the chorus of “Go down low by Sheba and Pallaso “ and was unbothered that her syllables were no close to the original in melody or meaning.

For the high notes, her mouth kept open and the singing went on in her head but certainly no sound!

A passerby muttered to herself, “ You sure should keep your day job”, The Askari did not hear, not that she would have understood the sarcasm either; the sharp bristles held together by black rubber near her hand kept a steady swooshing motion as the dust, paper wrappers and water bottles collected toward the hostel entrance.

Mrs. Kaheneso spent half the night tossing and turning in one of the couches. Her reddened eyes drenched a pool of wetness under her head and she rolled and turned in her tears wondering if she would ever cry again.

She would dose off and see a host of campus girls chasing her with sharp nails that would turn into knives that aimed for her heart. She would scream and mean to run but her legs constantly betrayed her and remained transfixed on the ground.

As the girls closed in, they laughed ghastly hyena laughter and she saw bloodthirsty canines overlapping the lower lip all the way to the chin.

In the bedroom, her husband tired and relieved of the previous night’s tension, undressed nonchalantly, lifted the duvet, rolled under it and slept like a baby till sunrise. ‪

#‎To‬ be continued
$TOH

BEAUTY PROBLEMS episode 8

He drove the car into the garage, closed the door and headed upstairs to the living room. He dropped the car keys on the tray by the door and loosened his tie in a haphazard motion as he headed to the bedroom.

“Hi honey?”, He said.

“Hi my foot, where are you coming from?”, She shouted as she stood up from the bed to face him but he continued to fumble with his shirt buttons albeit now slower. His face labored to conjure up a more endearing welcome to perhaps elude the escapade reeling in.

“Eh, madam…mpora mpora…”, He said eventually, trying his best to ignore the staccatos punctuating the one sentence his livid wife had so far afforded.

“Where are you from?”, she insisted, turning his chin straight above her forehead. “It is late in the night and a married man is just walking in on a woman who has no idea where he was..?”, he was not sure what the question was but he did not need to provide an answer for she continued, “Am I a flower or a security guard in this house, to just to open the door for you?”

“This is my house and I can do the dickens what I want. If that is too much for you, I doubt you have forgotten the route that brought you. It is women like you who are the disgrace to society. We do you a favor and marry you and suddenly you are rambling rules and regulations…., if I were you, I would get those wrinkled claws off this handsome face and mind my immaterial business”.

By this time the words were rolling off his tongue like a type writer.

“Ingrate…”, he let the last word hang midair to the desired effect-a dagger straight to her right ventricle. She let go of his chin in recoil and wells of dew clouded her eyes like a wounded dove that was too afraid to cry. She slowly walked out of the room as he kicked off his shoes and sat on the bed to remove the stockings.

Rita left Sombe Supermarket and headed to her room minutes before her roommate did. As she was removing the earphones and rolling them in her hand, Maggie walked in with the hood still flapping onto her forehead and ducked under the covers without even bothering to undress or notice her still-awake roommate. Rita thought the better of her initial desire to greet Maggie or indulge in any form of communication.

She texted Tracy that she was back, switched off the light and joined in on a Disney fanfare.

$TOH

BEAUTY PROBLEMS episode 7

She grabbed a bathrobe and headed for the door. She had dreamily ordered room service from a menu she could hardly decipher, let alone make a culinary attempt at its recipes. She closed the door, pushed the spiced yellow slices of potato fries around the plate with a fork clasped by just two fingers and occasionally nibbled at the tasteless French fries and cucumber.

She was glad to have already submitted her coursework assignment and that he had paid her upfront. She was unlikely going to get another client for the night but the previous one she had kind of liked-almost awkwardly attached. She offloaded a slow mo slap that heated up and Usain Bolted to her cheek at the sprint gap almost depressing the shiny dimple but certainly melting off the remains of Victoria Secrets’ foundation.

Fantasy aside, a girl had to survive!

She had half a mind not to touch the bathroom tap and she wiped it aggressively with disinfectant and emptied the tin onto the tiles, washed it down with splashes of maximally heated water before she could use the facilities. Moments later, she checked out of the room, pulled the hood to her forehead and flagged down a passing boda boda.

He had managed to ease the rapturous tension that had welled up that evening and dulled at the snap of a manicured middle finger and thumb. Generosity had visited him more liberally on this particular occasion and he would have been the more glad except that all his money had ended up in the drawer of a ominous creature by the hostel gate, Colline Hotel and now this “not good looking-bird in sheets her father could never think of buying”, he let this off with a distasteful snigger to an audience of one.

The blue jaguar let off a clear friendly waste of unleaded as it mowed over the soft mud and tar up and down the hill towards Seeta. Tracy walked through the gate a pair of strings hanging from her ears like a climbing stem on a tree that could gladly use the extra energy for itself.

$TOH