FLING WITH A DRUG DEALER II

I have only come so close to what may be regarded as dangerous illegal stuff. As you may know by now, my upbringing didn’t create an avenue to see or do so much. But I like to think I am just like any other average girl. I grew up in a house where water was strongly preached and wine was abhorred. Drugs were never even mentioned on a bad day. They were unheard of in our ancestry as well maybe?

(Read the previous episode: Fling With A Drug Dealer I)

In high school, some girls were constantly busted with weed. The axe of the law cut close to my shoulder just once when my cubemate was busted smoking with a few of her friends. At that time, we had grown quite fond of each other, and the rules of engagement in the law states that the friend of a thief is a thief. Mjango I was grilled by the disciplinary committee as if to exorcise the weed out of my system. Weed that I hadn’t even come close to touching in my life. I was scared to death and all I could think of was whose house I’d go to when I got suspended. Note the word ‘when’ and not ‘if!’ I think I needed a diaper after those two tough hours.

Ever since then, I vowed to go through the rest of my high school like a nun. But well, you can only remain loyal to good for some time. Eventually, your true nature catches up with you. We like to explore the things that burn in our souls. And it all just starts as a candle flame, seemingly harmless and tamed to only a wick and a shaft of wax. The wind of curiosity, need for thrill and adventure eventually blows stronger each time. The flame sways further to the side and further to the other side until it licks the edge of a curtain, like a rope thrown to you across a cliff and you finally catch it with the tip of your fingers.

My house began to catch fire from that curtain. I can say the curtain was my love affair that has since been tattooed on the walls of my heart.
Then the good servant but bad master slithered to the clothes hanging by the wall. That’s the wardrobe of someone living in a bedsitter. This was when I took my first sip of wine. It was in one of my friends’ bash in first year. I won’t lie, I left that bash with a thought lingering in my head,

“Forbbiden fruits indeed taste sweetest.”

With time, I gave myself a slow but sure upgrade. The prime of it was when Dee and I would have a slumber party all weekend where we’d just eat, drink, blackout and repeat until our guts cried enough. I still remember how soar my throat felt for the rest of that week. And no, my mum doesn’t really know about this but she has an idea. I went out for new year’s eve last December and she only said to take care of myself. And that she was praying for me. I said, “Thank you mum.” In my mind I finished by saying I was going to need that.

The weed that I had once denied and cried my innocence over was now fire on the furniture. And the only major furniture in a bedsitter is a bed by the way. It all sits on the bed. There’s not much to report here because I didn’t like it. So about once or twice if I remember well? Anyway, smoke just ain’t my thing. Consider the fire in that case having paused by the edges of the bed. Call it foreplay. Before we actually get to the arena of the bed.

Ever heard of ‘My Bed Is On Fire?’ Well, there is no better fire than the fire that burns through the junctions of our limbs. Like what you do when you get to any junction, here, reggae must stop as well.
But I must say I had a tiny taste of this reggae music some time before my then prince charming unclothed me to the dirty dance. It’s the result that follows when teenagers, bookwarm and conservative teenagers read Fifty Shades of Grey. My best friend in high school recommend it saying I’d be back after the Christmas holidays with a story to tell. Well, the story I told was nothing less of how fingers didn’t only turn the pages of the novel. We laughed to it and she said it’s actually more common amongst girls than anyone would confess.

I thought of owning a vibrator. It was never really that solid in my mind until the slumber party knows best. Too much girl stuff for one blog huh!
I think where my secret passion dwelt most was in the groins. And I had it within me that only those that deserve it will get access to it. The highway of love that was the number one way to deserve it was closed indefinitely. Now the only other way belongs to guys who treat me right. And by treat, I don’t mind all kinds of treats.

****

So coming that close to a gun was my closest cut with what I would call the ‘dangerous illegals’ in my life. Many deductions crisscrossed my thinking chambers and among them were these guys were either cops or theives. Especially theives! That was what filtered as heavier. How else would you explain the loads of money and now a gun? It was all go with the flow oh ye free spirit until it came to that. If only there was a way to jump off my skin. That way I’d start a new life with new alias perhaps because I have one warning about shoving shoulders with the law that scared the shit out of me and I didn’t have the heart to risk another one. One slap from the long arm of the law can do so well as to rid me off my libido.

“Relax ladies.”

“Don’t get it twisted. We aren’t some most wanted gangsters or something. We just carry it for safety. You can’t walk with that amount of money without a way to keep it safe, can you?”

Good point, I thought. One nerve calmed, a million more to go.

“It’s licensed by the way.”

A hundred nerves.

“So you’re alright. Assume it’s not there.”

I had to speak now, “Like the way we should also assume how you guys get the whole bank to sit in the pockets of your car seats?”

They laughed. “Easy now lioness.”

“We deal drugs. It’s more clean than most people think though.”

“But it still has it’s risks. So we just try. Everyone’s gotta hustle right?”

Okay I was done with the nerve count. Linda looked like she had heard a ghost talk to her. In my mind I told her, I am scared to my thong and back, but we were there already. We can only do so much as to go with the flow and enjoy it while it lasts. In fact, we’ll get used to it. We will see beyond it.

After hanging out with Melvin and Sean more often than I expected, I realised that besides their over generosity, they are just ordinary nice guys. The word is disciplined. They have all the money anyone our age could dream of, but somehow, it hadn’t gotten to their heads. I don’t know about what you think, but I think other samples of guys would buy all the chics in escort sites, buy drinks and brawl like there was going to be a lockdown in a few months time, because money is power. Sniff the drugs they sell because drugs is power in your mind. But for some reason, they didn’t, they kept it simple, but simple didn’t limit them. It didn’t mean they could not have some fun, or approach ladies they thought were attractive. Unlike what I’d expect from other guys with money; forcing their way to a chic’s approval. Simple doesn’t mean they’ve got zero libido. Hello, they are boys too. But boys who’ve got their manners together. We like to call them gentlemen.

Manners enough to ask, not on the first day of meeting them – whether we’d like to go back home with them. No not a foursome dumbass.
Melvin asked me nicely yet in a sexy way. You bet I felt like giving him my thong to put in the pocket of his jacket as a sign of earned trust. He didn’t just ask, he asked before I took my second shot of tequila.

Quote, “I wouldn’t be so appropriate to wait until you’re drunk.”

And the rest is history. No, in fact history is that I said yes and the air was cleared. No one was leaving anything to the obvious yet not being mischievous and yet leaving it all to go with the flow. Linda’s history was that the gun and drug dealership was too much to swallow for one day. I mean, even literally, she wasn’t going to be able to gobble up anything bigger than a spoon that night. (Hehe.) So she said a polite no of which, mjango, was well taken by Sean. When it was her time to leave, he saw her off. Girl talk reports that he offered to bless her with either a 25k worth of thank you or a peck. My girl is smart. She took both.

I, on my end, as Sean drove, Melvin and I took the backseat. I had kept my thong surprise for too long. So I kinda shouted it in his ear amidst the loud music and the dark of the back seat. I saw his face gleam as racing street lights wiped his face. He wanted to see. I told him seeing was for later, and he’d do more than just seeing. We need not to spoil the fun before the party begins, right? Besides, make a man hungry enough so that when you serve him his share on a plate, he will devour it with no apologies.

My drunk memory doesn’t remember the details of that night so much. What I cannot forget is how I felt. To be honest, vibrator aside. What made me get the impression that I was no less of an animal to him was as he saw me off, he slapped me with a hundred G. I know right? He said he hoped to see me again soon. I told him I’m just a call away and kissed him. Come on, he deserved it. No not because of the 100K. Sigh. Rolling eyes. Bitch please!

Or if you’re judgemental, how does it feel to know that’s how I got a new phone? And many other things I prefer to keep to myself because you’re likely to say I’m bragging. Linda of course couldn’t believe it. Our girl talk did an analysis and she said she wanted to see how it goes for me first. Well, I joked saying it went a hundred thousand ways for me. But naturally, she is the type to take it quite slow. So she was justified. Well two weeks later came the call. Linda and her size 36 were all in.

Theirs seemed to swing in a different direction though. They were more like dates. She started to think she was falling but she was a tad afraid. Afraid of the unknown because love sure does have many unpredictable outcomes. What added on to being afraid was the frequency of his availability. It looked like my previous relationship. Showing up after sometime and making up for all the time he was gone. Now this one made up even more by buying all what Linda could name.
So came the slogan from the two gentlemen,

“Name it, we buy it.”

I was running out of things to name. I had moved from a bedsitter worth 4500 to a one bedroom house worth 11000. This one had a wardrobe by the way and it was full. I never imagined I’d ever have so many shoes. Shoes and clothes that he helped me choose too. See, they wanted to be part of our lives.

Melvin liked to say, “I want you to buy it. But it would make me feel even better when I buy it with you.”

“Aaaw, I know, right? Me too mjango”

So with time, he earned the right to go lingerie shopping with me and yes, that’s just as much as you should know. Sometimes the four of us would go shopping. Short road trips and sometimes flights. Then they would disappear for their drug lords for God knows how long. They’d miss us too much that they’d make an impromptu call.

“We are in Uganda coming back on Sunday night. The First person I’d like to see is you.”

“That’s adorable. But we’ve got exams on Monday morning.”

“Damn! Can’t you skip or something?”

Giggle, “No aki. They are not optional.”

“How about I send you 10K to give the lecturer so you’d get an opportunity to redo it later?”

“Uuuhhm…”

“20K it is.”

One time he sent 10K to pay for the exams then cancelled their availability on the morning of the exams. Si I paid rent just like that.

****

They did make up for the times they were out at work but at some point, not entirely for me. I had been down that road before, and my tattooed heart knew better than to invest all my attention there. Linda didn’t seem to mind. She was on another frequency and the last thing I wanted was to corrupt hers with mine.

Melvin is a terribly nice guy. That’s exactly what I said to him when he began to realise that he was getting half baked attention. Unlike before when my entire world would go on a feat when he showed up because yes, I had missed him.

Men like to feel important. They like to feel needed and appreciated, and a man like Melvin, and even Sean, who have given up their opportunity to bag even prettier chics wanted none but us in their world.

Look, from a love standpoint, you’re likely to be blinded when you want to see beyond the nice guys with ATMs in their wallets. But from a no strings attached standpoint, I was able to tell that Melvin and again even Sean had given us all their attention. Loyal is the word. Seeing what their work does to their time, the best form of fulfilment cannot be found in hookers. Oh yes, during our pillow talks he once told me that hookers and strip clubs were the it. Until their godfather, who introduced them to the business, sat them down one day and spoke like the wise man he is.

He said, “In this business there are two kinds of people. Those who are overtaken by the deception money comes with, that is first, women, then alcohol and drugs. Then there are those that maintain their sanity knowing that the simple things of life are the best things in life. Simple in this case being having loyal people around you. People who care about you. Having everything in moderation including fun. Not forgetting where you’ve come from lest you start stepping on people you meet on the head because you think you have more money than them. And I must tell you boys, the former either don’t live for long or get useless quickly. Lastly, find yourselves women who see beyond your money and dick, will you!? Respect yourselves at least. You’re gonna catch a disease with these call girls for Chrissake!”

Ever since then, those words hit hard and changed their lives completely. Sean told Linda that she had become the new and best reason to look forward to when coming back from wherever they handle their business. And so for both of them, the only thing they expected was loyalty.
Loyalty, that I was in no place to give.

****

“I’ve noticed you weren’t really into me tonight like other nights. You are not as excited. Like it’s a do it for the sake.”

Crap! He had noticed. Of course he was to at some point. I had to tell him.

“If I’m wrong, sorry, I didn’t mean to conclude so quick. What’s wrong?”

He insisted. More reason why I couldn’t escape this one. I had to tell him that my loyalty fuse burnt long ago. Others have theirs short circuit and get repaired after some time then short circuit again, repair then soon it burns out completely. Mine, was only once. It was sharp and direct. Leaving no room for error. Now I am just a pretty girl who is a wanderer. Seeking thrill and expecting nothing more. And lately, while he’s been away, I had found thrill elsewhere. This thrill didn’t spill money like him of course. A little bit too bad but it’s no big deal. But he makes it up with a shaft the size of my arm from my wrist to almost the valley of my elbow and a charm like the Wizards of Oz. He is a lot of fun to be around. He is sweet almost like you Melvin, but the biggest difference between you and him is that he is ever there and you’re scarcely there. I have been in a situation like this before. That makes it even harder to be as loyal as you may want. Today you say I don’t seem like I’m into it. That’s also because I was with him last night when you called. And last night was the night he drained all my juices, barely leaving any for you. You would have done the same anyway.

****

Sigh.

“So you’re saying this has all been just a fling for you?”

There was a tear stinging my eye. I wasn’t happy with myself. This was a man’s heart and nearly half a milli worth of his trust I had put at stake. At the same time, I knew I couldn’t forge shit!

The tear fell as I Iooked into his eyes that were drenched in manly sorrow.