Aleki is a member of Mafisi Sacco. He has several house helps from his area and two or three women from his church.
He also has a girl from MKU-Thika campus with an annoying accent that fluctuates from English to American. This is in addition to the plump, light-skinned landlord’s wife.
He has another woman in Ukambani as well as a beautiful, young, Swahili woman, but whose family has forbidden him from seeing.
One day, he won an enviable amount of money in a SportPesa bet. Somehow, all the women in his life and others found out about his sudden fortune. His house became like a girls’ hostel on a campus. Or a women’s guild seminar.
His bevy of women hovered about his door, from prostitutes from Majengo, in their high heels and short, skimpy dresses to the house girls with their Abuja lines and peddle pushers, to housewives in colourful deras and beaded sandals, to ordinary, career women in spectacles and grey or black trouser suits and shoes that match their handbags. There were also two aunts and an uncle who came from Ukambani to get his share.
Aleki’s best friend and ‘lawyer’, a hungover Kassim with swollen, bloodshot eyes, doubled up as his personal bodyguard. One had to go through him to get to Aleki.
He (Aleki) even temporarily quit alcohol to reduce the chances of losing the money. He was not ready to jeopardise his future. He wanted to be a tycoon in Kenya. And just to be safe, Kassim, under Aleki’s strict supervision, would (re)count the cash every five minutes.
Of course, his alcohol sabbatical only lasted a few hours. His wallet was stolen when he was almost collapsing from excessive beer intake. This is why, the following morning, he couldn’t pay a prostitute for services rendered.
Instead of explaining his financial situation and seeing if he could be given at least two days to pay up, Aleki simply decided not to pay the woman.
So the prostitute decided to take it upon herself to teach him an unforgettable lesson. The punishment may also have served the interests of her known and unknown colleagues. Before leaving, she defecated on Aleki’s bed as he watched in untold horror.
From her bowels, she released a pool of foul diarrhoea whose malodorous stink stung the noses and eyes of the occupants of the entire plot and almost killed an infant.
A thick, green-yellow puddle of an unforgivable atrocity wrapped in sin and sprinkled with infections, diseases, and death, and animosity and discord, and morbid fear-wounded souls.
A steaming, poisonous, mephitic broth, the lunch of demons and a favourite dessert of Satan. It was venom, what the prostitute excreted from her rectum.
A venom so lethal that Aleki was stunned into a stupor of confusion and shock for a long while. He would just stare ahead, drenched in shock, his glassy eyes lost in a foggy, faraway place, while rocking back and forth due to the trauma, the image of the semi-solid pile of stool imprinted in his mind.
Drool would dribble down his chin from his open mouth and soak his chest. His head remained tilted sideways in an awkward position that strained his neck, and his fingers twitched every few seconds.
Later, after he had recovered from the shock (which also sobered him up), Aleki found a few men to disassemble the bed. It was taken out together with the bedding and mattress and he poured kerosene on the whole heap and burnt it.
Afterwards, a cleansing and purification ceremony was done in his house, where tears flowed freely, and heads were shaken sadly, and people sighed heavily. One of the neighbours who helped him contracted cholera that day.
Asked why he had refused to pay the prostitute, Aleki said he had been thoroughly underwhelmed by the state of her womanhood.
“It was very uncomfortable. I did not enjoy, and that is why I refused to pay,” said Aleki. He went on: “I told her I was not comfortable with the way things were. She made suggestions, including use of oil, but I refused because I knew nothing would change even if we used 20 litres of coconut oil. She was dry. Period.”
Men nodded in agreement while the women frowned in disapproval.
“I asked her to leave but she said she wouldn’t until I paid her. I asked her why I should pay yet I had done nothing, and she said provided I slept with her, I had to pay. I told her I would only give her 50 bob to take a boda boda but she refused.
She insisted on the whole amount. When she realised I was not budging, she lifted her dress, pulled down her underwear, and diarrhoead on the bed, then left.
“I am done with prostitutes!” swore Aleki. “Completely! Forever!” But he was seen in the company of another one shortly afterwards.
