House Lending Gone Wrong

It’s quite rough having a girlfriend and not having a house where you can, you know, fornicate a little. So, you either borrow your friend’s house or become celibate. This is common among comrades.

In my first year, I didn’t have a crib. I was staying in the hostels. Life in the hostels wasn’t that bad as advertised by those coolkid comrades who were able to rent out.

The only, and only problem I had with staying in the hostels was the issue of privacy. You couldn’t just bring a girl over without informing your four roomates in advance. You couldn’t even dress; you either had to do it in the bathrooms or put a curtain over your bed and change while inside there.

We moved, regardless.

So, this one time I had arranged for a match with my girl. We both yearned for physical touch and what not. The arrangements had been done the previous night only that the venue was still the elephant in the room.

She was staying at her parent’s house. There was no way I was going to direct my strides to their house. No – that is an unwritten law; don’t do it at her parent’s house, just don’t.

She was also not comfortable coming over to the hostels. Reason being, there is no privacy. I tried to explain to her the ‘exile’ concept but she wasn’t buying none of that.

Stuck!

With no other option in mind, I buzzed Jonteh. Jonteh was my cubemate in the first semester but he decided to rent a house outside school in the second semester.

I explained to him the situation and he agreed to lend me his house with the dire instruction, “nyinyi mfanye mambo yenu lakini msiache evidence yoyote hapa, niko na dem na staki drama.”

Copy that.

At 2pm, I texted my girl and gave her the directions to the venue. She agreed and even promised to come 10-minutes ealier. I was to pick her at the school gate and walk together to where Jonteh stayed. We would pretend to be Jonteh’s visitor then Jonteh would leave the house for us. That was the agreement over phone.

Personally, I had preferred Jonteh to leave the keys somewhere where I could access it and get down with my business. He defended himself saying the area where he stays wasn’t that secure to just leave the keys anywhere. Okay, who was I to call the shots.

I picked my girl and strode to Jonteh’s place. Tension could be felt between us. She was either too eager for what was going to go down, or too nervous that this was going to be our first time ever since we knew each other. I couldn’t fathom which.

“Let’s cancel.” She said, as soon as we made the first knock on Jonteh’s door. We could only hear some blaring music from inside.

“Cancel?” I quipped
“Yes, he is probably busy with online classes. We shouldn’t displace him.”
“But he agreed.” I said.

I knocked on the metallic door again. Quite hard this time.

“Me naenda.” She said, making large strides away from the door. I ran after her and grabbed her arm, like the way they do it in movies. Only that I didn’t pull her close to me, look into her eyes and kiss her soft lips. No, I didn’t do that – I just grabbed her arm and whispered loudly, “are you okay?”

Jonteh finally opened the door and looked at our direction.
“Aah, niaje bro.” I greeted, heading to his doorstep.

“Babe!” Jonteh exclaimed. I was confused. Was he high? Why was he calling me ‘babe’.

“Bro, rada?” I asked.

“Yani umekuja kukulia dem yangu kwangu?”

Huh!? I turned to look at my girl. She covered her eyes with her left hand.

“Bro, ni huyu ndo dem ulikua ukuje nae?” Jonteh asked, his eyes growing bigger and bigger with every word.

“Ni dem yako?” I asked, still in perplexity.

“Hio ni swali gani unaniuliza, chura!” He walked towards me amd pushed me aside. I lost balance and fell on the floor.

“Why do this to me?” Jonteh’s voice was loud and full of anger.

“Me nilikua nimekuja kukuona, me ata simjui.” I heard my girl’s voice trying to convince Jonteh.

“Umjui na umekuja nae?”
“Me simjui.”

The neighbours’ doors clinked open. Some drew curtains to peep at the drama that we had just created. I braced myself for some embarrassment.

“Fala!” Jonteh croaked, as he swaggered back to his house.

I stood up and signalled my girl to follow me out the gate lest Jonteh comes back with a knife, sword, gun or even a bulldozer to finish us.

“You two are dating?” I asked my girl once we got far from Jonteh’s place.
“No, why?” She retorted.
“Why did he react like that?” I asked.
“Who?”
“Si Jonteh, mbona alikua anakuita babe, mnadate?
“What are you talking about?”
“Just do this, go back home.”
“Okay.” She quipped, sashaying away.
“And delete my number.”
“Okay.” Came her reply, brief like a miniskirt.