thoughts ran wild

         She gets asked one annoying question every now and then; When are you getting a man. It hurts whenever that happens at funerals and family functions. Others think that it must be due to her sinful past or, sinful pasts of her ancestors. She agrees not with any of it. She knows that making it in the business world these days requires one to be fully focused on tasks at hand or she may find herself twiddling her thumbs at home--doing absolutely nothing.

        Lately, her life has been sour like an open wound. Every date left her wondering what wrong he may  have done to them. But again, she remembered how city guys likes an easy lay. They even like boiled eggs! She remembered with  a smile on her face whilst sipping straight from a beer bottle mouth. A trait which most likely, according to one of her closest friends, had to do with her being single.

        At first she was a happy man-eater who chowed men's meat and their purses alive. She left most of them in their wake.  And thought she would never be found out. It was not like she could not afford to spoil herself. It was just that, her money had to be kept safe for times when she got to have an accident. . Her closest friend told others and soon thereafter there was no more a secret or many of them. Three soon became a crowd and she hid herself behind books or beer bottles. It all depended on how she felt at any moment.

         She thought having a man sparingly was as safe as having money in her ballooning bank account. She hated her friends and spent time alone scouring internet dating sites. Spending money uselessly trying to fill the void burning her chest alive. 'Me man-eater?' she'd protest to her friends between beer sips when her life was exciting, when she had a man, when she drank no beer by herself.

        Forgotten, she started counting dates on her ringless, left index.  Counted dates of her haters on her fingers and realised how never loved in this she had been. She counted; 'January First, Valentines Day, Good Friday, August Ninth, September Twenty Fourth, December Sixteenth, December Twenty Fifth,my birth day December Twenty Eighth.'

      She was drunk, sitting on a bar-stool and staring at the barman-- afraid to ask him out on a date. She had been to the bar for four straight weeks and was slowly warming herself into the hearts of regulars. They had now found herself a new friend.

She had no other plan for the night and acted like she was passing out after she realised that the bar was nearing close. It was now her, the bar tender holding her tenderly to his car.

'Where do you stay miss?' he asks her in a husky voice for which she found romantic.

‘Two blocks from here,’ she replies.

The smell of her perfume  tilted his nostrils like Casino machine slots. And thoughts ran wild in his mind; ‘will she agree if I dared asked her some?’

‘So who are you with?’ he asks her.

‘I’m lone and I find it hard to eat,’ she replies.  Some days, like tonight, I pass out because I drink

my sorrows on an empty stomach, away.’

It’s a shame that in a big city like ours there are still unsatisfied, single women like you.’

‘People always judge the book by it’s cover and think that it’s due to I thinking highly of myself that

I end up being single.’

‘They don’t know what they’re talking about. Where’s your car?’

‘I don’t have any and came here by a taxi.’

‘Will you mind be taken out on a date?”

‘No, not exactly. When will that be?’

‘I’m not sure. I just think that a woman like you deserves to have more fun times than heartache moments. I can hear by the sound of your voice that you’ve seen worst days.’

‘Me, no, never. It’s just that I’m unable to cope when the night falls.’

‘I too am unable to. When the night falls I hide behind a bar counter and I wonder  how it would be like if I got to lose my job.’

“Don’t dwell too much on that. When’s  the date?”

‘Tomorrow morning at the club. Three ay am sharp!’

‘You must be out of your mind.’

‘Where else should a six days a week patron take his date out at?’

‘At a restaurant or a hotel not his place of work.’

‘I was starting out on your first week at our club.’

‘So you always had eyes on me?’

‘Yeah. I’ve just lost my girlfriend to a long sickness. We were a young couple hoping to

make our own family soon.’

‘I too would like to have a family of my own sooner rather than later. I’m not getting

any young and thinking of it, I’ve been travelling  wrong paths in this world. That’s why

whenever things gets harder, I find myself drinking myself to death.’

‘I’m glad that you’ve found your feet quicker than my ex. She died of alcohol related illness.

I see you as no replacement of a woman I’d ever been with and I hope that you see me

in that fashion too.’

‘Yes,  I do. I too am tired of having nothing to brag about to my exes.’

His eyes pop out.

‘I mean my girlfriends my love not my boyfriends.’

‘Uh, that’s what I wanted to hear. I’m tired of dating women who want quick fixings to their

emotional well-beings. ‘I’m  trying to forget how empty my ex left my soul. I love you.’

‘I was about to ask you just that. We women need insurance and you can’t just be with me

without telling me how you feel. I think it’s now time to go to my house.’

‘Yeah. Let’s go.’

He put a key into his truck’s ignition and off they went.

love handles

Bang Bang! A violent thrust on the door.

'Hold on,' she says. I'll be with you now.

She wraps a towel around her waist, expensive waist which she always get praised for, An hour glass waist called LOVE HANDLES in street terms. She reached for the door handle, sunk the key into a knob's keyhole and twisted it either direction and pulled the knob to open the door.

To her shock, his husband just wheezed past her without either pecking her on the neck, side of her face, forehead or whatever place imaginable. A hello would have calmed her nerves after all those cheating and gay rumours she had heared about her man from people she barely knew.

He went straight to the lounge unit, flapped its doors open and reached for a bottle of vodka.

'What's it my love?' she asks.

'Is it you who called my workplace and told my manager that I haven't been sleeping at home?'

'No. Why on earth would I do that?'

'He's been on my case the whole day and I think one of these days, he'll hear from one of my good lawyers.'

'Arg, come on, maybe a meeting with you both and your CEO will help both of you a great deal. Write to senior management and tell him how his behaviour is impacting on your production.'

'Thanks. That's the best advise I ever got from anyone including you for a very long time.'

He placed an empty glass on the coffee table and stood up.

'Don't you tell me that you won't be sleeping at home today too.'

'You see, just like I'd thought.......'

'Okay, I admit, it's I who told him that you aren't sleeping at home. Your parents too know what you've been up to all these years. If you dare walk out of that door, you should know that you and I are through. I've already packed my clothes up and am waiting for you to give me a hint to whether you're prepared to patch this marriage of ours up or are ready to go intertain another cheap slut who'll further drag our family name into the mud.'

'You know what my love......'

'What?'

'I'm heading to the office to brainstorm ideas with my manager. Even if he could remind me about how I'm mistreating you, I don't care.'

To her surprise he slumps himself on the couch, picks up the glass he had been drinking with and tells her:; 'Love, do you mind going to the unit and filling this up?'

She smiles and replies; 'No. Not at all.'

He pulls up his phone from his shirt pocket, dials a number.

'Hello honey bunch,' so says a female voice by the other end of the phone line.

'Call me by my name.'

'Why? What happened?'

'I no longer need you in my life. Didn't I tell you when we first met that I'm a married man?'

'You did you cheat. I'm going to sue you for having had wasted my time and for having abused me financially and emotionally.'

'I didn't force you to. So you'll have to prove all of that in a court of law failing which I and my wife are going to sue you for dragging our good family name into muddy waters.'

He hangs up on her.

'Who's that and what does he want?' asks his wife.

'It's the woman who I don't love. Just because we shared drinks during our company's year end party, doesn't make her my girlfriend.'

'I think I know who she is. She drives a red cabriolet. I got a clue from the way she has changed from greeting me to looking at I like I'm something she just emitted. You know through what.....'

'Her rear.'

'Yeah, that's it. I'm glad that we're through the needless nightmare and all that I'm asking for is a night out with our friends to show haters that we're as strong as ever.'

'I like that. It'll happen sooner than you can say holiday. Now come over here.'

They snuggled and kissed. problems of yesterday forgotten quickly that night. A first night in thousands that she had to cry herself to sleep sipping alcohol--whatever she could at the time lay her beautiful hands on.

'Hello?' he replies.

'It's I again. The only thing that'll be enough to split you and I is death. I'll make sure that you and your wife don't have quality time together. One way or the other.'

'I'm not scared of either you or your lawyer. I owe any of you nothing now if you don't mind, my wife and I would love to make love.'

'I don't know I've bothered calling you. Sex is the only thing that you ever think of. No wonder the gay rumours. I'll be ashamed if I was a man your age and woman young and old still thought my bed sharing lack with other women besides my wife might be as a result of I betting for the other gender.'

He laughs then hangs up on her. He cannot believe that she could go as low as thinking that he is maybe a homosexual, just because he does not feel like bedding her anymore. But they do sting him as he asks his wife for some breathing space as he drinks one glass of vodka after the other.

‘What’s wrong my love?’ he shocked wife asks him.

‘It’s Lilian again and this time she has pushed me so hard and far that I think I’m left with no option but to sue her ass. ‘

‘What did she say to you?’

‘Says the only reason I’ve come back to our matrimonial home is due to scathing public’s gay rumour.’

‘Who does she think she is to talk rubbish about us?’

‘I don’t know just yet but, I regret every day I lied to you just to be with her.’

‘Don’t worry my love, I love you forever.’