SHOOT YOUR SHOT III

Lying on the floor, helpless. Not moving a muscle. Nerves senseless. Unaware of everything else going on around. In fact, not even aware of whether the world exists anymore. It was a limbo situation. In between worlds. Maybe the world of the living and the world that is the abyss in between the world of the living and the dead. In that state, nothing matters. No worries and no stress. Basically because totally no thinking is taking place. There is zero percent cognition. No response over anything. Cold water wouldn’t do the trick and neither would being thrown into a pool. Not even seduction by the most ‘booty-full’ lass would jump-start the body. You don’t need to be told where the jumpstarting terminals are located on the body, do you? The only thing that could be done was to let that mjango lying on the floor in the manner of a corpse be! The body systems would soon restart after the effects of being high wear off!
(Read the previous episode here.)

****

Mwamburi and I were still at the table. He was seated with his elbows pivoting on the surface of the table. We had taken a short break to check whether the WiFi in the café was working. Okay, I made that up but that’s what I did like most of us do. The first thing you’d do when you walk into a place is asking whether there’s WiFi. We are a free WiFi generation mjango. For some, WiFi is all they need for survival. Forget food, water, clothing and shelter. We now have a new basic need; the one and only, WiFi! The break was for us to refresh our minds, swallow saliva, catch our breaths, reflect and check our messages on Whatsapp thanks to free WiFi of course. We had been talking for two and a half hours now. And from the look on Mwamburi’s face, we were about to go for another three. He is a talkative one by the way. In another life, I think he’d make a very good parrot. (Mwamburi you know I don’t really mean that.) But it’s what you should expect of someone who has a lot to tell.
I checked my WhatsApp to see whether there had been more responses on a talk session I hold on my Whatsapp status and soon going to Instagram too. It’s called Talk Trigger. I post a controversial issue of life and pose a question that prompts people’s responses on the matter. I then post the responses anonymously for everyone to follow up. It’s like an online talk show. I was loving how mjangos were reacting to open relationships. These talks show me how different we are even from the way we reason and believe. I shared some interesting responses with Mwamburi and it fired up a conversation that lasted another 20 minutes. His opinion was that if you really love someone, you would love them enough to not have the relationship open. But if you want it open, why not just call it ‘friends with benefits’?
And so we proceeded.
“So you were saying that the high frenzy began at the bar,” I said.
“Yes. It was a very fancy lounge of a kind with one side having a counter that borders the kitchen and another side having a counter that borders the shelves of the bar. I had never been that close to a bar in my life!”
 

****

Telvo told me to make myself comfortable. He’d be sending someone to take my order soon enough. Before he left, he introduced me to a few mjangos that were seated in the lounge. One guy who looked like he was in his late thirties had sunk himself in the middle of a three seater couch. On his left and right were two pretty young girls. I didn’t get to know who was entertaining the other there. Anyway, what better way is there to relieve yourself and feel appreciated if not by being in between the arms of two good looking ladies? By the way, the clubhouse membership is not allowed for people above 40. I sat on a single leather couch that was by the corner just to be surreptitious. I wasn’t ready to mingle, yet! I noticed the lounge was bigger than its first impression. The other part of the lounge was through some stairs not far away from me. I would go there later. That one is more of a club now.
A few blinks later, a petite, light-skinned girl with braids that touch her bum walked up to me. She was in the attire that employees there wear. There they call them housekeepers. Some days they’d wear shorts, other days they’d wear skirts with a shirt and others, dresses. All have to be short and don’t ask me why. Oh, that’s for the female housekeepers. On her chest was a name tag pinned and printed, Emily. She just looked like an Emily. In her hand was something like a menu.
“Hello, you must be Mwamburi.” She said with a smile arced to her earlobes revealing the beauty spot under her lower lip.
“And you must be Emily,” I said while looking at her chest for a second or two. Just long enough for it not to be named as inappropriate.
“Yes. I’ve been asked to take you through the beverages,”
“Just to make sure I don’t order anything too strong for me eh?” I asked followed with a chuckle.
“Well,” she giggled, “Apparently, yes. But also to make sure you will love what you choose to take.”
“And I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want the gorgeous housekeeper to be in trouble because of a customer’s dissatisfaction.”
She nodded with a smile.

****

“Ey bro you were rising quickly in the game of lines I see,” I said.
Laughing, “Ah Mjango! It was my time to shine you know. It just flowed, I don’t know how.”
“You found her attractive?”
“To be sincere, yes. Also because she was the first girl I ever flirted with.” Mwamburi said.
“That’s too good for a first timer man!” I said. “You should have seen some of our first times,” I lightly slapped my face.
Laughing, “World record embarrassments, eh?”
“Manzeh!”
He said, “Well you’ve not known true embarrassment bro. I’ll show you what true embarrassment looks like.”

****

She sat on the armrest of the couch I was seated on. Like it was normal for her, her thighs were widely exposed like free steak! They took half of my vision for the entire time she sat there. There was a black spot sticking out of the edge of her tight skirt. It was peculiar. Like a birthmark of some sort. I didn’t know I would find out what it really was soon enough. The other half of my vision was on the menu she was displaying before me. She explained the beverages in detail as if she brews them herself. In the end, I settled for Jack Daniels chased with Sprite. A few glasses later, I wouldn’t need the chaser no more. When Emily left, I told her that I hoped I’d see her again and it didn’t click immediately why she said it wouldn’t be long before that time comes.
Telvo came and led me to the bigger lounge. There was music. Good music. The kind that you can shake to. It was now heading towards 8PM when the lounge began to get packed by the minute. On one end were poles. They were the first thing I noticed when I entered there. Around them were leather seats. On the other end was a small stage for live performances. That was where the DJ was situated at the time. That was a Friday night, so it was quite obvious that there had to be a DJ and mjangos had to turn up. The rest of the place had comfy seats and in the middle, a dance floor!
Everyone from the bold to the beautiful walked in looking marvellous. Some singlehanded, others in pairs and others in groups. The DJ happened to be just as good of an emcee as he is a DJ. So by 9PM, the clubhouse members were all on their feet. The Jack Daniels and the numerous cocktails I had emptied into my gut had now spread all over my system. Secular music had never sounded so good and lively to me before. There was a lot of jumping, twisting, and moving of body parts in the name of dance moves and ultimately, twerking!
Stop and picture this for a while, I had never held a glass in the name of sipping booze, never flirted with a girl, never been to any bar or club, never really hyped along to secular music and never had a lady so close to me any longer than a typical hug among others you shall know later. But now it was right before me all in one glass and I was taking shots of it like it was medicine!
Speaking of twerking and being so close to a lady, how I got to the dance floor, I don’t know. Or let me put it this way, how they got me to the dance floor, I don’t know! Yes, they were two ladies who under the club lights and my tipsiness, I was only able to deduce that one looked something close to Corazon Kwamboka and the other had these fancy glasses on like Betty Kyalo used to wear those days. (He knows their names but he prefers to reserve them.) I have always had an idea that girls find me cute and they love my height. I have never really paid attention to it.  If I was to draw a conclusion about why they were drawn to me, I’d say those are the factors. If not, then we were all just having a good time.
The one that resembles Corazon was a better dancer. Maybe because she had the right set of hips. Okay, I had no experience in these things so who am I to criticize? But well, nerves don’t lie, do they? My inexperience could be noted though. Like when the glasses chic literally guided my hands to the hips of Corazon’s look alike and said, “We like your hands here while we dance for you.” Ladies, should we take a poll on that?
“Anyway, a point came when it rang in my mind that I was actually having a lot of fun. For the first time in three weeks, for the better part of that day, I had not thought about my sorrow. So this is how good it can get? Then I assured myself I was looking forward to taking it a notch higher!”
When our bodies couldn’t dance no more, we sat to catch our breaths and maybe even reminisce. Chic with glasses had left us for what the club knows best. This one on the other hand lay her head on my shoulder. It was a nice feeling, one I had never had before. I was in for an enormous surprise about feelings, both physical and emotional. I had seen in movies that when a lady lays her head like that, the guy would take his arm around her waist. It had not been two seconds after my arm assumed that position when some mjango showed up.
“Buda! This is my woman!” He said. He had a horse voice. Yes I said horse, not hoarse.
Maybe I should have been like,  “Hey horse? And why does she have her head on my shoulder? Horse!”
But I just said, “Okay. She’s a good dancer though. I bet you don’t know that because you’re all over other chics.”
I had never imagined I’d speak to someone like that.
“Nigga watch your mouth! “ He roughly held my shirt by the chest. He seemed drunk than I was.
“Go ahead and beat me even to death. Dying is not an issue for me right now you should know,”
The chic was too shocked to say anything.
Just then, “Shit man! What’s going on here?” Telvo showed up.
The mjango immediately let me go and said, “Nothing man. Babe let’s go.” She quickly followed after him.
“Have I just seen you checking her a*s out bro?” Telvo asked.
“Ah! That girl is hot man. No lie. Fire waist.”

****

“If someone who knew me would see and hear me at the time, they’d be surprised to note the drastic change. The exact opposite of who I used to be.” Mwamburi said and sighed.
The sigh came in the middle of a look he had on his face that expressed he was also in disbelief that that was what he had become.

****

“Bro have you had enough of the night?” Telvo asked.
“Is there more to the night?”
“Are you shitting me man? There are endless things for the night. It’s just that the night only comes at night,”
We laughed as we exited the lounge. We took a number of turns, ascending and descending of stairs and stopped on a door in the basement. It’s usually locked from inside. Not just anyone gets in there. Many club members don’t even know such a place existed in the mansion. He knocked, someone peeped through the peephole and then it was unlocked.
We were kissed by a cloud of smoke from the room. It was smoke from weed. I knew the smell of weed, but never that concentrated; for lack of a better word. I coughed three times and Telvo said, “Shit is conc I know, right?” When he is high his speech slugs.
Once again, the room was fancy. Instead of couches, it was full of leather bean ball ‘seats’. And what was the business there? Getting high on anything that can take you higher than your sanity!
Music was playing in the background. The kind that can make you high just by listening. I was still sweeping through the new environment and trying to process things I have never seen in real life. Maybe only in cartel movies. Shisha pots, cigars and cigarettes,  rolls of MJ, some white powder,  a few topless ladies if that is enough to get you high too; name them! There at the topless ladies is where the processing got a bit slow. Later through my own experience, I’d realise that they had to go topless because of how hot the crack makes one feel. That explains the ceiling fan and fans in every left, right and centre of the room. The room also had a gambling table, a TV and a pool table which I assume is to help mjangos there not to go too hard.
“Hey mahn. Don’t just stand there,” Telvo had already made himself comfortable in a cru that had sat by three shisha pots.
I went closer and bent to his ear and said, “Man I don’t think I can do this.”
He turned and looked at me like he had smelled poo. “Shit Mwamburi! You’re chickening out now?”
Continues…