ANOTHER ORDINARY NIGHT
I was browsing through PornHub on my cell phone when it suddenly vibrates and starts to blare the loud ringtone. I almost drop it to the floor and nearly have a heart attack as the sound pierces the silence in the living room. It was just another lonesome Friday night, one that has been wonderfully quiet so far. After a chaotic Friday afternoon meeting all sorts of people at work, it was nice to spend the evening alone at home, nursing a serious case of blue balls that I opted to watch crappy porn.
I recover and answer it. It was Michelo. And I honestly had hopes for a good Friday night's fuck, though I could barely hear her over the pounding music playing in the background. “Yange, am leaving the club right now!” she screamed into the phone. “Cynthia is going to drive me at your house.”
“Alright babe," I say. “Is Cynthia with someone? Like a date or something?” Michelo’s Friday night out with 'the girls' had become legendary by now.
“Nah. We're only the three of us: myself, Luyando and Cynthia.”
I frown. “Has Cynthia been drinking?”
“Like, one or two ciders. She says she’s fine to drive.” Michelo says something to someone nearby, but I can’t make it out. “I’ll be at to your place soon. I want you to rip my pussy tonight.”
“Yea? Beat it up just how you like it.”
She laughs. “I want you to fuck me till I'm bruised.”
She hangs up and I go back to the porn site. There's something about Michelo's naughty side that keeps our relationship going. Its like a fire whose heat I can't have enough. I just want it consume me whole. Michelo and I have our own places and we inter change for sleepovers: for her coming to my place after her girl's night out, it means freaky sex, straight out of fucksvile. Just two of us, fucking each others brains out till me pass out.
The porn was getting boring as I couldn't stop thinking of Michelo's body grinding against mine. There's something about good sex that makes a man go crazy over his woman, and I was crazy over Michelo.
I plug my phone to its charger and leave it there, then I head to the kitchen to make myself something for the needed energy when Michelo arrives.
As I put four sausages on the pan, I hear a loud cracking noise in the backyard. I press my face to the cold, window and look outside, but there’s nothing out there but a few bare trees. Probably just a stray dog. It can’t be easy to survive the winter on people's rubbish bins.
My phone rings again, so I wander back into the living room to grab it. It’s Michelo. I can hear sirens in the background. “Uh babe, so Cynthia kinda, um, lost control of the car.” It sounds like she’s holding the phone half a meter away from her mouth.
“Oh baby! What happened?”
“We hit a ZESCO pole. Car's wrecked, but we’re all okay. I think that police friend of yours, Mulenga is here. They’re talking to Cynthia.” She laughs. “She’s definitely drunk.”
“Yea, Michelo. No kidding.”
“They’re ignoring Luyando and I, and there’s a bus here so I’m gonna get on and come to your place.”
“Sounds like a plan, babe.” I pause and grimace. “Wait. Do you know what bus to get on for you to reach here?”
“I’ll figure it out. Will call you when I’m close.” She’s gone, and I go back to plug the phone in.
My eyes on the TV.
There’s a lull in the action, when the attractive male protagonist and attractive female antagonist engage in an awkward sexual conversation, which might have worked if they had any sort of chemistry, and my mind wanders to Michelo's naked body— I could see my dick grow with a heavy bulge through my gray sweatpant. I remember how Michelo would smear my semen and sperms in her inner thighs when I came as a 'sign of affection' towards me. That shit was hot as Hell. I wondered if she'd do that tonight. Even so, I couldn't wait for her to come, the way she'd let me hit it from the back while I grabbed and pulled on her waist beads was a major turn on.
A sudden burning smell attacked my nostrils and I jump up into the thick smell of smoke. The sausages. Damn it. There’s about a meter of black smoke hovering in the kitchen. I run in, pull my burnt sausages off the stove and open every window, letting the chilling June air in. My creation is little more than ash by now, so I open the backdoor and throw it out for whatever stray dogs are trying to get through the night. So much for that.
There’s some leftover pasta in the fridge. I’m happy to eat it cold as it is; at this point, I’m better off not heating anything up. I settle down and continue the movie, but my mind’s going back to Michelo's body. The way I'd lay her on her back, my head buried between her legs and licking, sucking, smooching her pussy out as she moans in sing-song. The way her back woul—
Again, my phone's ringtone snaps me back to the real world. “Now you pick up!” Michelo’s shouting, but I can barely hear her. Wherever she is, the network is terrible. “Yange! I've been calling you for hours!”
I pull the phone from my ear to my face and look at the time, and roll my eyes. “You last called thirty-five minutes ago. Where are you?”
“I have no idea babe. The bus is going in the middle of nowhere. I have no idea where any of these stops are or where this place is. Hell, I don’t even think the signs are in English.”
I sigh loudly. Not this again. “How much did you drink at the club, Michelo? Did you take any shots?”
“Drink? Shots? I can’t even— ” She trails off, replaced with a loud, harsh static. I pull the phone from my ear a second time. A few seconds later, the phone call disconnects. Whatever. She’ll find a way back home.
The movie eventually ends, but it’s just past midnight and I’m hardly tired. My thoughts go back to Michelo. We have been dating for almost five years now and I wanted to committed to something more serious. Put a ring on it. Maybe it was the fac—
A loud scream comes from the backyard. I go back into the now-freezing kitchen and grab a flashlight from the cupboard. I shine it around, but there’s nothing out there. The remains of the sausages are gone, and there are dozens of paw prints around the area. The damn dog moved pretty quickly.
The smoke in the kitchen is gone. I close all the windows and lie back down in the living room. I guess I doze off, because when I wake up it’s 2:22AM in the morning. There’s been no contact from Michelo, so I give her a call.
“Hello? Yange?” Now it’s like she’s talking into a phone on the other side of the room. “Are you there? Please say something!”
“Yea, am here,” I say slowly. “Have you figured out the way home yet?”
“I can’t.” Despite the low volume, I can hear panic in her voice. “I’ve been on the bus for days. Maybe weeks, months, I can’t tell. Transferring from one bus to the other. None of them are going anywhere.” I swear, I can hear her whimper. I can’t help but grin. I’m going to hold this against her for YEARS. “I don’t want to get off. There’s something very wrong in this place. Something old, dark and evil. It’s waiting for me.” I grin even wider.
“Yeah, it’s called the night, Michelo, and it’s not very friendly to blackout drunk ladies, now is it?”
“Stop it, Yange. Just stop it…” She fades away.
“Hello? Michelo?” I check my phone. It’s still connected to the phone call. “If you can hear me, just get off and grab a taxi, okay?"
She comes back, with a slightly-clearer voice. “We just passed Matebeto Restaurant. I recognize this place now!”
“That’s good, seeing as we drove by it nearly every single day when we were teenagers.” I sit up, and suddenly I’m feeling groggy. Time for bed. “Anyway, I’m gonna go— "
“No!” She shouts forcefully. “Please stay with me until I reach your place. Don’t hang up.”
“Okay..." Now I’m wondering if she took any substances beyond alcohol. It’s like she’s combined the hallucinations of weed with the depressants of beer. I grimace. It’s what the old Michelo would have done on her 'girl's night out'.
“Just— just talk to me. How are things at home?”
“They’re good,” I say. “There’s a bunch of stray dogs outside, making lots of noise. I think they're from the house down the road. Might want to watch yourself.”
“Cool.” The connection’s even better now. “Just went over the bridge between Mphangwe forest and Dambolamadzi farms. I’m a few stops away.”
“And there you go. Was there any reason to have been concerned?”
“Like you wouldn’t believe me babe.” She pauses. “Yange, I cannot wait to get home and be with you. I think I can hear your warm arms calling me.”
“They saying ‘Come and lay naked in them.'”
She laughs, loudly and heartily. “I’m nearly there. My goodness babe, I’m glad this night is over. Thanks for not hanging up, Yange.”
“I’m always here. You know that.”
“It was weird,” she continues, “I couldn’t call or text anyone. I tried to get on Facebook, but it looked really strange. And as soon as you called, I realized where I was. It’s like it all came out of nowhere." Her voice rises. "And there’s your street! I’ll call you when I’m near your house. Holy fuck, that so dark— ” She hangs up. I go to the front window and look out. All the street lights are on, casting their pale-orange tint on the tarmac. I gaze as far down as I possibly can. And there's no sign of her.
I'm about to go and clean up the kitchen, but my phone rings. “Where the hell is your house, Yange?!”
I throw my free hand up incredulously. “The same damn place it’s always been, you idiot?”
“I'm serious, Yange! I can’t see it. The street is way too dark. I don’t even know if I’m on the sidewalk or the tarmac.”
“What are you talking about? It’s bright as day out there.” I go over to the front door and flick the outside light a few times— On and Off, showing off our driveway, the one Michelo has been so used to. “There. Can you see—“
“I saw it!” She screams. “The lights! Turn it back on!” I do so, even though it adds nothing to the overall brightness of my neighbourhood. “I see it. Okay, yeah, I’m close now.”
I look out the window, but still can’t see her. There’s just a pair of headlights coming down the street. “How close are you Michelo?”
“Nearly there. Oh, thank goodness, I’m nearly there.”
The headlights slow down at my driveway. “Are you in a taxi?”
“No. Do you know how easy a taxi would have made all of this?”
I scoff. “I think there’s a lot of things that could have made this easier.”
She’s silent for a moment, and then she sighs. “Look Yange, I know what you’re thinking, but I swear, I only had a few drinks.” Her voice lowers. “I’m done with that other stuff. I made that promise to you, and I’m going to keep it.”
“I know.” The vehicle’s pulling into my driveway. It’s a blue police land cruiser. What the hell is going on here?
"I’m a few steps away. Your house has never looked so good,” Michelo says. The vehicle stops and Mulenga with some other police officer get out. They take their caps off and hold them against their chests. A look of pitty, sadness and— grievance?, on Mulenga's face.
“No— ”
“What is it, Yange?” Michelo asks. “I’m at the driveway. Can you see me now?”
The world suddenly stops around me. This was supposed to be just another night in my otherwise normal routine. Everything I’d done— the porn, the movie, the sausages, those stray dogs outside, what I’m going to do with the life I'd pictured with Michelo— had been so inconsequential. She was the point. She was the goddamn point.
Mulenga and the officer are walking up the steps. My throat is suddenly very tight for me to breath, but I manage to get the words out. “Yeah, my love. I can see you.”
“Alright Yange. I’ll be there in a minute. Thanks for guiding me back to you."
“I'll always be here for you.” I take a deep breath. “See you soon my love.”
“Can’t wait.” She hangs up. A few seconds later there’s a knock on my front door.
I open it with tears already running down my cheeks.
*
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