RAMBLINGS OF A CITY SCRIBE

Catherine.

That’s her name. Or Kate. Her buddies, out of fondness, or ridicule, fancy calling her thus. She likes it.

She stretches and yawns. She stretches again. And lets out a bigger yawn. She casts the duvet away.

It’s midday. 

Kate has been trying to get out of bed, vainly. Her stinging headache has refused to let go her.

She must wrest herself from bed.

Her body is aching, and detained in an overmastering grogginess, from toe to scalp. She has a vertigo arrest whose source she cannot trace. The stubborn migraine from last evening has refused to fade away even after nearly ten hours of sleep. The soreness between her legs is still raw.

She summons the little energy left in her bones and jumps out.

It’s a Thursday.

She is dressed in her pink PJs, her favourite. She looks hell sexy, despite the sleepiness hanging on her eyes.

She rushes to the loo. She pees on herself before she is able to get there. No big deal, is it? It is when removing her wet underpants that she realises something quite unusual.

She removes the blue hot underwear and stares at it for long. Calvin Klein. It is Kenny’s. She put on it after their savage sexual drama last night.

Kate is in the enticing albeit outrageous practice of carrying home hot underwear of all delicious men she sleeps with. These are kept as souvenirs, and always give her a certain sense of pride, conquest, and fulfilment to look at. Such human depravity.
 

Last evening, she got home at the evil hour: 4am. Dropped by Kenny in his car. 

Looking at herself on the mirror in the dressing room, she is . she curses the image staring at her with bony severity. It looks as though it would jump out and strangle her. Her hair is oh-hell-scraggly, her neck bedecked with love bites, eyes bloodshot and face flushed. 

Kate closes her eyes to erase Kenny from her mind. It hurts to think about him. He is Lancelot-hot, and impossibly loving. Kenny is a banker, so young yet so highly established. His success in his career belies his age. He’s not thirty five yet. 

Sexual onslaught, alcohol and smoking of last night are why. Yester night was heaven with pleasure. The sex was oh-hell-hot. For Kate, nothing would come between her and hot, spontaneous sex. Absolutely nothing under the sun.

He is married to an artist. The couple has two kids. This is what sickens Kate to imagine. That all good men are always taken is something this lass has never been able to wrap her head around. What is left in the dating scene are ravens, wolfs and souls of no character, men of no half credibility or discipline: scavengers and broke dependent men who are so shameless to borrow the wherewithal for upkeep from their well-to-do girlfriends.

She cringes at the thought.

Kate has Kenny at her disposal though. With a sigh of triumph, she leaves the room.  

Her stomach is thriving with emptiness, and rumbles. She must wolf down a morsel.

Putting water to boil, she steps out to the neighbourhood kiosk to buy items for breakfast.

At the shop, she asks for eggs, margarine, coffee, and bread. She remembers that her supply of sugar was depleted yesterday.

She asks the shopkeeper, Gilbert, to allow her sugar on credit, promising to settle the bill later in the day. The guy, who is in the habit of leering at her when she is not looking, readily accepts.

In a short while, breakfast is on the table.

Kate's breakfast

For a famished soul, she descends on it with relish and every mark of starvation.

Her phone vibrates. A text message.

It is from Kenny.

Hey, queen.

How do you think last night was? I think it was incredible.

Would you fancy a repeat tonight?

Good day!

 A smile of genuine glee seizes her countenance. She loses herself as her long tremulous fingers type:

Hello, knight.

Last night was full of delight.

I would give anything to have it again.

Good day too!

The life plot of this lass is simple. She contents herself with movies, catching every series that is out in market. All youths do nowadays.

Music is her Holy Grail. Her playlist on every single instance runs into several thousands of songs, mostly classics.

And books. Yes, books! Unlike most young people, books are this lady’s favourite staple. She will tell you that reading is the lifeblood of any meaningful writing. It is upon this wisdom that her small bookcase in her exquisitely furnished living room is overflowing with classical literature tittles, from Agatha Christie, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jane Austen to E, James, JK Rowling and...Gosh, the list is infinite.

Catherine finished her university degree the year before. She took a course in journalism, to her father’s utter disgust. They fell out. Then invaded a passion for writing. In college, she was a renowned scribe for varsity publications.

She is a top blogger. Kate fell for blogging for it is less tedious, earns an easy buck and she has her freedom. She also writes academic papers for overseas students, conducts research for her online clients, and, yes, gets paid for, say loudly, plagiarised, but ingeniously edited works.

Over the past two years, her clientele base has grown from leaps into bounds. She is now a force to reckon with, her credibility transcending borders.

What more could she ever ask for? She irrevocably abhors the daily grind of travelling to town to work for monthly remuneration. It is a hustle she cannot stomach, too bad for her bone.

And sleep. She slumbers for, sometimes, eighteen hours! That’s her lifestyle. And give a hoot she doesn’t.

Kate hasn’t found her man yet. She is not in any hurry though. Yet she has her corporeal desires and sexual needs, which must, repeat must, be fulfilled. There are countless men out there who crave for the oats, and are ready and eager to put down handsome cheddar on them.

She has rent to pay, staying in a fairly plush neighbourhood in Nairobi’s Karen Estate. To most shots her age, living here would be a pure flight of fancy. She calls a cab whenever she has ramblings in town. Eat she must, and a fine diner is this brunet.

A lady who’s conscious of her looks, she must get her hair coiffure, nails done and looks spruced up. Say weekly. Kate is one hell of a lady who cannot keep a sane head on an empty pocket. All these needs, and others.

She is a fucking head’s turner and of amazingly great shape, you would put her down as a work-out buff. Providence gifted Kate the wares for which most chicks are often ready to pawn their lives.

After hours of watching the epic blockbuster Empire, she drifts off to sleep.

this queen has mustered the knack to survive, and even thrive, in this mad metropolis. And to survive in Nairobi requires a great deal of aggressiveness, acumen and speed. She is brainy, and does not keep her grey matter is not for exhibition.

Like any go-getter, Kate has learnt the invaluable art of using her beauty as leverage against men. She is not a sex worker, no sir! She does not operate on the cheap as to leap into bed at the stimulus of a buck flashed by a man. Nay. She knows who to lie with, and this, strictly, depends on the other’s charisma, intelligence and elegance. His bank balance too tallies. And it better be colossal. Aren’t her needs equally colossal?

Kate is your regular highly gregarious fellow. She boasts buddies across the city, usually fellow fun-mongers, in the country, and courtesy of her finesse in writing, across the globe.

Trudging the streets with: gung ho

Her outgoing nature recognises no bounds. It does not wear her out to engage anyone online for hours on end, providing her interlocutor is smart, creative, unpredictable, and can afford several slacks of hearty jokes.

Missy though can have a heart of steel. She suffers no fools pleasantly. For her, it is as easy as pie to banish, usually dispassionately, anyone she deems a nuisance. Men who attempted to hit on her when she was not in her right state of mind live to rue their advances.  Poor them!

Yet you cannot lure this lady. Not with all the diamond in West Africa. If her heart is not into you, or whatever enterprise you have under your hat, her rigidity will disgust you.

It is on this account that she has lost so many friends, in college, in the streets, and even, non-regrettably, her own family. She fell out with her pappy, telling him to his face what a bugger he was! Such assertive is mademoiselle.

It is half-four when she wakes up.

Kenny called thrice. She was fast asleep. He has left her three text messages, all which are a reminder of their meeting. Ken suggests their favourite rendesvous Club Cnister.

Mademoiselle apologises for the missed calls, and proposes Arctic Summer as the alternative; to break the monotony of visiting this joint.

Kenny consents where they agree to meet at 7:45pm that evening.

Pronto, and beaming with the expectation of another hot night, she dashes to the shower.

She hums a song while cleaning. She allows her mind to wander on the erotic loose, imagining how marvellous it will be to have Kenny with her, inside her. She squirms at the imagination, and as water bursts from the tap on top of her head, a sensual tightening, a strong clench of her muscles bursts with vigour from her body.

Kate showering

She has had an orgasm in the bathroom! Only out of thinking about this god. How he sends her to paradise!

Smiling at her own stupidity and pleasure, she showers on, her hymn now forgotten.

She inspects her phone after the shower. Another missed call.

This one is from home. Her dad was calling.

She ignores this and pushes her phone away with puerile irritation.

Damn him, she mumbles.

Unaffected, she goes on to ready herself.

7pm is two hours away. But Kate must leave for town earlier. She needs to get her nails manicured and legs smoothed, at a friend’s salon.

Presently, Gillian, a girlfriend of hers, calls.

 

Gillian, or Gil, Kate's BFF

She picks it up almost too swiftly, and speaks with near silly excitement while adjusting the piece of magic sexiness that is her new purple brassier. It is a snare for Kenny. Upon seeing it, this will doubtless hold his hormones at ransom.

The two birds agree to meet in town inside thirty minutes. Gossip is their favourite fodder.

Mademoiselle picks the briefest ensembles her wardrobe has. Her application of makeup is taken a notch higher, if not several. Her heels must be the highest. The cleavage must be shinier, her hair the scragglier. She does all this with deliberateness. Today she will have men in town drool at her, Kenny eat out of her feet.

Further sprucing up her looks,for she must be on the sharp today, she looks at herself in the mirror. The replica is just in gorgeous shape. It contends her.

Her phone rings. The cabbie is already at her doorstep.

It is 5:50pm when she grabs her handbag and phone, and out she steps.

In town, she meets her BFF, with who she goes to a coffee shop, grab for themselves Espresso Romano cups and head on to the salon. The two march across and through the streets with something of pride and self importance and showboating, oh-queens-of-delectable-meat.

 They pass near corridors of boutiques and shops of fancy accessories, stopping by to espy and admire new arrivals.

As they trudge through the busy twilight city avenues, the pair draws lascivious looks from people. Men particularly are held in a near trance, as they turn heads to watch the two blithe babes.

Kate and Gil admiring things in town

continues...