Jecinta and the Wig

Photo credit: Mediamax Network

Where to start?

How to begin?

Her name is not Jecinta. But that is what we’ll call her.

I never knew her. I never even got the chance to speak to her. But from her looks, I knew one thing, one thing was certain – she was way out of my league. Waaaa…..aay out.

It was in July. The sun was sunny (as if the sun can be anything else). A sunny day in town. I was in town to run a few errands. Nothing much because, for one, I was broke. My Mboss, from somewhere in Ruiru-ndani, had decided that, for the two months I had been teaching grammar and composition, I was not to receive a penny. That my efforts to teach the pronunciations of ‘ara’s and ‘ero’s to the sons and daughters of Kiambu were not enough, and therefore, deserved no pay. Well, that was my predicament – there is little one can do against tin-gods in this country. 

So off to town so as to keep my thoughts busy and not, in the least, planning murder or contemplating suicide. Of course, I was hungry and the tapeworms in my stomach were reading the book of Lamentations. The ‘few errands’ done, I had to go back and face my landlord who had decided that my solex was not enough security into his partitioned one-room house – my kind landlord had, of course, out of his own kindness, put a huge padlock with “state of the art mushroom pin-tumblers” on my door.

So, you understand why it would have been difficult for me to sweet-talk Jecinta. I am no coward, but, seriously, if I had ‘put’ her box, where would I have taken her? Not to my house in Ruiru – the padlock, remember?

I met Jecinta at the bus station. I was waiting for a Lopha bus to Ruiru.

I was three-persons in line behind Jecinta.

A beauty to behold. There she was; long hair that reached the small of her back. Her voice… her voice was like waking up in the middle of the night to a glass of crisp water – godly. From where I was standing, I understood what the makangas were beholding. In fact, the man behind Jecinta guarded his position jealously. Well, for a fact, if I were him, there was no way I would let that voluptuous site (sight?) escape me.

Jecinta’s legs were an ebony brown. Smooth and long with not a mark on them. They were athletic, this I could tell from the Nine Inch stiletto heels she wore. Nine inch is no easy stunt to pull. Yet there she was moving forward in line with ease, a step at a time. Not staggering like a new-born calf, but with a steady confidence that spoke of being born into those shoes. Her perfume wafted through the dusty air, strong and elusive at the same time. One minute you inhaled it, the next there was nothing but a trace of it; something tantalising that I could never breathe in deep enough.

There I was staring at her shoes, her legs, her hair and everything in between. Then, it was Jecinta’s turn to board the bus – I was envious of the man who would sit next to her.

As Jecinta raised her right foot to board the bus, the shift in weight broke the heel of her left foot.  Jecinta quickly moved the right foot from the bus onto the solid ground. However, the sudden snap of the heel lurched her body backwards and, in so doing, sent her long hair (a wig – after all!) flying into the face of the man behind her. Landing smack onto his face, the man, more out of reflex than contempt, wiped it out of his face as one would beat a branch hanging dangerously before his face or as one would swat a fly.

          Swiiii….there went Jecinta’s wig onto the dusty curb. The wig landed near a makanga who a few minutes ago had been bashing the sides of the bus screaming, “Ruiru ndani!”

Being chivalrous, the young man bent down to pick the wig and, at the same time, so did Jecinta. On seeing Jecinta bending to pick her wig, the young makanga thought twice about chivalry,  and decided to let her pick it so he could have an unimpeded view of how “far beyond the knees” her legs went. With her right foot slightly (9”) higher than the left, Jecinta bent to pick her wig and save face.

Breaths were held. All was quiet at the western front. The wretched of the earth behind Jecinta could be heard breathing deeply in restrained gasps.

Down Jecinta bent. She may have believed that the wig-mishap would be forgiven with the grace with which she picked it, and yes, I would forgive her. Down Jecinta bent, an inch at a time. Up the skirt rose, an inch at a time. Steady my eyes. Unsteady my heartbeat.

Then, suddenly, as the devil would have it, her handbag slipped from her shoulder and down on the concrete it crashed!

From the bag flowed different gadgets and items. Her iphone slipped and mercifully rode on a notebook that was escaping from the bag at the same speed. Eye pencils soared out of the bag. A tin of lip balm jumped out, skipped past a few shoes, and under the bus it went. Her white handkerchief flattered under the weight of something lifelike, venous and brown. With a slight nudge from a trivial breeze, the handkerchief flapped off revealing a very huge dildo that made the men in the crowd gasp (I know it was huge because the woman behind me muttered something in that line, and the man next to her looked at the skies in silent intercession for the men in the queue).

Quickly, to herd the contents back into her bag, Jecinta swept them back. In her haste, she knocked her lunchbox which landed smugly onto the wig on the curb before spilling its contents.

Out of the lunchbox rolled huge beans and maize. Her githeri spilt; the potatoes rolled under and past the bus as if their life depended on it. The beans rolled and coated themselves in dust as if to camouflage themselves from being eaten. The maize, stood there in their defiant gaze as if challenging her to do her worst.

Then out of nowhere came a sniffle.

It was not Jecinta.

It was the young makanga who had wanted to help her pick the wig but thought against it.

My eyes shifted from Jecinta’s legs, to the lifelike sex-toy that dangled in her handbag, as if wanting to witness the creation of the universe unfold.

I stood there staring; from her legs, to the vibrator.

I felt a better part of me shrink, coiling back as if intimidated.

From the vibrator to her lunchbox, eyes shifted before stopping on that defiant lunchbox which settled on Jecinta’s wig as if daring her to pick it.

 Jecinta and the Wig

By Macaria Wa Gatundu