FEELS LIKE CHRISTMAS

“It looks like Christmas but it doesn’t feel like it,” She says while sipping her cocktail carefully not to spoil her lipstick. She uses a brand of lipstick called sleek. I employed a designer for her and who said it was the best. I trust my designer when it comes to my Madame’s beauty matters. What kind of a man would I be to let my Madame walk around the festivities looking less of what my woman should look like?
“How do you want it to feel like?” I ask while tightening my eyes. I am starting to sense some attitude from her. A cold sensation passes through my chest when I think that the slaying flu has caught up with her. I brush away that thought.
“I dunno. Just like that.” She smiles and looks away at the balcony. 
We are at the Crayfish hotel in Naivasha under a special invitation by an old friend of mine from campus called Sonny. She has lived in Naivasha all her life and she doesn’t seem like she will ever leave for another city. Is Naivasha a city? I don’t know. Sonny didn’t tell us. She called a day after my birthday and told me she had a Christmas gift for me or us for that matter. 
“Hello?” I began on the phone call.
“Hey Vick, sasa?” Sounding enthusiastic as ever. The Naivasha in her I guess.
“Poa sana Sonny. It’s about time you called dear,” I giggled.
“Ahaa!” Chuckles, “Happy belated birthday again.”
“Thank you so much, hiyo gift itakuwa aje?” I just asked randomly. I didn’t know she actually had a gift.
“Kiherehere ya nini Vick!” She laughed.
“Ah! Nikona haki ya kuwa na kiherehere at this time.”
“Kwanza how is your Madame? I miss her you know. You better not have given her out because if that’s the case, no birthday gift for you.”
I felt guilty as if I had actually given her out. Besides, who would I give her out to? Which sane mjango thinks he is worthy of my property? Anyway, it’s Christmas, let’s not beef.
“She is good and we are good. She misses you too.” 
“That’s nice and before I forget, did she give you a birthday present? Anything special for your birthday?”
I could smell a rat in her tone, “Why do you ask?”
“Ah weh si ujibu. Uko sure hakukupea kitu yoyote tamu?” She giggled.
After realizing what she was talking about, “Idiot! Kwenda Sonny!” I clicked.
She laughed hideously for a minute then, “Anyway Vick, take it easy. So now I have something for you which is for the two of you.”
I was elated, “I hope this is not one of your jokes again.”
“No this is serious. I have a voucher for two for Christmas from Crayfish. It’s yours now, for your birthday my best friend.” I could picture her smiling like an over excited emoji as she said that. 
So here we are, by the mercies of a voucher for two.
“Kwani you don’t like the place?” I ask as I bitterly eyed the waiter who had taken forever to bring my roasted meat cascading through the tables with a tray on his hand. “Na huyu waiter sahi ndo anajua kuja after nimeshiba na soda hapa!”
“Honey don’t scold him. See the way they are busy with so many customers.” She said.
“That is why you are saying it looks like Christmas eh?”
“Ah! Just calm down and have your meat. Sonny will be here soon and I don’t want you looking like lemon.” She said with a wife material kind of a tone in her voice. The worst thing I can ever do when she uses that tone is to disobey those orders. 
“Sorry for taking long sir,” The young lad in the attire of a waiter said as he rested the plate of steaming and well-seasoned roasted goat meat on the table. You know that feeling you get when someone addresses you with respect you don’t think you deserve? Yea that was the feeling I had. I even didn’t feel like scolding him anymore. I was too hungry for that anyway.
“Will we go to the bar tonight?” She asks.
I almost get chocked on my roast meat when I hear that, “Ati?!”
“Si umeskia kile nimeuliza.”
“Kufanya nini?” I ask.
I started thinking and praying silently asking the good Lord what had gotten into her.
“Kwani watu huenda bar kufanya nini? Wewe unaeza enda bar kunywa soda?”
“So tutaenda pekee yetu?”
“Kwani unataka kuenda na nani mwingine? Am I not enough company?” 
I hate it when ladies corner us with questions like that, making us have no choice but to confess that they are the only ones in our lives. Mark you, I once asked whether we could go to the bar I once went to for the first and last time and I received a handful of stoppers, enough to even make me fear watching a beer advert. You know, Tusker ishara ya Kenya yetu or is it Imara kama Simba? I don’t know. We will go to the bar tonight and see, that is if I don’t win this case.
But before that, “I once asked whether we could go to Kengeles and you bashed me. What changed?”
She laughs almost like those ladies who think they are pretty and lovable in soap operas. Who is she trying to please in this place? Definitely not me because she knows I get pleased in absolutely other different ways. I start to look around without looking – to find out whether there is some mjango who is posing a better Christmas treat to my Madame in gestures or eye contact. I must say every good looking guy I looked at automatically became a suspect even without trying to find out whether they were throwing eyes at my own. I was feeling insecure. Do you hear that? I am feeling insecure on Christmas! The savior better be born quickly!
“Nothing has changed darling. Don’t you want to feel like Christmas?”
Wiping my mouth, “Oh! So it’s about feeling like Christmas huh?”
“Yea something like that.”
“So from this Christmas you will start to drink?”
“You’re saying it as if it’s a bad thing.”
I don’t know why I didn’t fall off the chair. It must be the strength of the Lord. So what next is she going to say? That it’s not a bad thing to go to Lidos club for the New Year?
“It’s a bad thing if you are going to drink yourself to a blackout like a day I remember. You know what day I am talking about.” I say.
(And a mosquito just flew into my juice when I reached this part in writing. I hope it doesn’t change my moods.)
“Ah! Bae that was kitambo. Forget that. Can we enjoy Christmas for once at least? We won’t die if we just let go for a night.”
“No I think you are wrong. We are enjoying Christmas, or at least I am. I don’t know why you are not enjoying this.”
“I am enjoying but you are not getting what I am saying. I just don’t feel all this.”
“Kwani what is Christmas supposed to feel like?” I had started losing it. We are about to ask everyone to evacuate the place and leave the two of us. Or should we get a room?
“Now you are starting to act like a kid Victor.” 
Did she just call me by my name? I of all people know when your very own flesh and blood calls you by your name, then the sky is going to fall like a rotten wooden ceiling. 
She continued, “We are adults, this is not supposed to be an argument. Or if you don’t want to go I will go alone.”
Immediately after those words flew out her mouth like a reckless housefly, I felt a lightning of paralysis strike through the axis of my body. When a woman detaches her company from yours mjango report it to The Nairobian newspaper and have them investigate for you who she wants to go to instead of you! I felt like begging her to calm down so we would talk about it. There has to be a way to settle in between. But at the same time my ego wanted us to spend time in a quiet place instead, just the two of us. Call that sweet ego huh? But I am afraid she would say that I only care about myself and my interests. That I don’t want to consider what she considers as fun for Christmas. 
The angel on my right shoulder appears in a white robe telling me not to give in to her demand for the bar. Yes it had now reached to the level of a demand. Besides, love birds need a time of their own. I have a good reason to stick to our nice time out that night. Look at the bigger picture, the savior was born in a calm place in the meadow, not in a tavern somewhere. Surely we wouldn’t want to dishonor that by going to a bar on Christmas? 
On my left shoulder was the old man with two horns in a black and red robe saying I ought to be a gentleman and just go with the flow to the bar. Did you hear the devil just tell me to be a gentleman? As if he was one himself when he lied to Eve. Now see where we are because of his deception; seated fully clothed in a restaurant arguing on whether to go to the bar for Christmas while we are supposed to be naked in a garden arguing on whether to take the subway, a flight or a road trip to Bethlehem to see where the savior would have been born if we had sinned. But thanks to the old serpent, look at us!
I tell myself, I need to be a man. I shall not be moved. Just as I was about to raise my head to give my manly verdict, as advised by the angel (hehe), I see a shadow fall over the table.
“My two wonderful lovers, look at you both looking good and enjoying yourselves.” It’s Sonny. She is in a woolen trench jacket, black tight pair of jeans and heeled boots. In my dreams she would look like the Kenyan version of Oprah Winfrey. Or is it the Naivasha version? Behind her is a muscular guy. I don’t need to be told who he is to her.
I fake a smile. I see my madame fake one too, but hers looks legit. How do ladies do these things? I can feel guilt color my eyes. 
“Hey Sonny, you looking good darling.” My madame says. Girl talk there. Needs no interruption. 
“Aww thank you dear. You know how we roll.” They laugh loudly. I see no joke there. Men laugh at jokes, ladies laugh at compliments. Someone tell me that is not true.
“So,” Sonny says, “Will you two join us at the bar tonight?”
I slowly turn my head. I look at my madame. My madame looks at me. She smiles, with a mischievous smile. One that looks like saying, “See who runs this town tonight?”  
She looks at Sonny and says, “Now it feels like Christmas!”
They laugh again