LOVE BINDS. PART SEVEN: SEX AND ILLUSIONS.

Kundabene looked down at me the way people looked at beggars, the way people looked at people buried in despair; people they could help but they couldn’t save. She was right to look at me that way. I was in a hospital alone with thick layers of bandage covering my stitched neck. I was laying stiffly in the hospital bed as advised and I couldn’t even attend Bison’s funeral. My parents were flying in to offer their condolences to Mrs. K, Bison’s mother. In the mean time I was alone.

The silence between Kundabene and I was thick. Aside from our single encounter we didn’t know each other personally. We knew each other because we shared a person who knew us both intimately. She sat in the little chair next to my bed and just looked at me. Kundabene looked drained, plainer than she was the day I met her, her beauty was suppressed by sadness. She was in an all-black ensemble and her shoes were dusty. I had lost proper track of days and times but I knew she was from Bison’s burial. There were latent questions between us but we were both waiting for the other to speak. Waiting for conversation to make this strange moment real. I was numb. I wasn’t going to break the silence. We would be quiet and embrace our depression and when she was tired, she was free to leave. I wasn’t going to make conversation. I wasn’t going to ask about the weather, the economy, the race to elections or any of the regular conversation starters. I was a broken man. Sometimes it is okay to be a broken man.

“Ishmael what happened?” Kundabene said. There was no cheer in her voice.

Happened to what? Me? Life? God knows. I sure didn’t.

The events flashed in my mind vaguely like it was all a dream.

“I was stabbed with a screwdriver. Samantha stabbed me.” I cleared my throat. Silence had made phlegm accumulate in my throat. “She left me for dead in the car park and I blacked out.”

“The nurse said a couple brought you in a white BMW. Friends of yours?” Kundabene asked.

“No. I left them in the bar. I didn’t even know they followed me to the car park.”

“They saved you in the nick of time Ishmael, you could have died...”

Like Bison. She didn’t have to say it. She left the sentence hanging in the air.

“Samantha is insane Kundabene. Nobody is safe. She needs to be put away for life.” My voice thickened with grief. It was all my fault.

“She was found at the airport, the officials said she was rummaging through the entire building looking for her time travelling device, claiming she needed to go back to her timeline or it would all be for nothing.” Kundabene said.

In another situation it would all be hilarious. But in this one it wasn’t. I wish time travel was real. If it was I would have gone back in time. Way back. I would have never gone to Kenya and I would have never met Samantha. Time travel wasn’t real. Bison was real. Her death was real.

“It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have…”

“Ssssh… you can’t blame yourself for Samantha’s mental illness.” She said.

I missed something. I pushed her too far. The perfect ones always have an extreme craziness to them. Samantha was all kinds of perfect towards me. You see, in these parts, we are more likely to be superstitious and believe in witchcraft than believe a claim to mental illness. Those things are ‘white’. But Samantha was white. I played a part somewhere in her illness and the realisation gave me a vile taste of regret and grief, it was too much to swallow. I broke down and Kundabene let me cry. My sobs were unfamiliar to me, grief thickened my voice and tossed manhood out.

“Take heart Ishmael, nobody blames you.” She picked up her handbag and brought out a white box. “Mrs. K wants you to have Mwila-An’s phone. She knows you are the best person to know what to do with it. The funeral has been extremely strenuous on her but she will visit you as soon as she can.”

Kundabene put the phone on the bedside table. Mrs. K was turning seventy one. Other older women were playing with grandchildren and spending their pensions on rocking chairs and other things old people spent their money on. But not her, she was burying her only child. It was a tragedy. I was the one who needed to visit her. The thought almost made me burst into tears again.

“I will visit again. Let me change, rest a little and fix you something to eat, I will come.” Kundabene said.

Once she was gone I grabbed the phone and turned it on. Her ‘do not disturb’ deactivated. I unlocked her phone. Whatsapp...first name on top was mine, we were chatting on her last day. Then Chomba. Then there was a Malcolm... A Wesley, a Keith, Nkosi, a Mumba and finally a feminine name; Mandy. The texts from the men were all clean. All chancers by the looks of it and Chomba wasn’t gay like she said. He was pursuing her and winning from the looks of things. Bison had her secrets. I had no idea she was so active. I let out a sigh of relief and I was about to put the phone back down when it hit me.... Bison didn’t know any Mandy. Mandy sent another text. And another.

So I opened them. For sure, Mandy was not a chick, as I previously thought. Mandy was a perfect man to look at. How do I know? His nudes were plastered in their media. Hers too. His chest had the build that mine didn’t. His Tag Huer was the advanced version of the one I opted to buy because that was all my finances allowed. His smile was so unnecessarily toothy but alas, still perfect. Everything intimidated me about this guy. I didn’t even want to admit that I looked at his dick but hey... he was winning in that department too.

I read their messages for so long, I forgot where I ceased to notice he was my competition and found myself laughing at his jokes and being impressed by all the smart things he said. I turned off the internet and put the phone back. Eyes closed, I still couldn’t fall asleep.

I should have been mad that she wasn’t as virginal as I thought or that she had a secret life but there I was, sad that she insisted on friend zoning me after sharing something so deep. There were so many men in her life and none were in her friend zone. Except me. I know. Sex shouldn’t be so deep for a guy. Unless his sleeping with a hooker, which isn’t always certain either. There was always an emotion. Whether love or hate. So maybe she wasn’t a virgin, so who were these men and who were these men that reached a level that I didn’t after all those years?

I had no idea who Mandy was. I couldn’t figure out if he was from Lusaka, if they were dating, if she loved him. Did their relationship end with nude pictures and sexy messages or did they go all the way. Ugh. I didn’t want to know the answer. I picked up my phone. I wanted to call Mwiinga to cheer me up. I found her name in my phone book but my fingers wouldn’t let me dial her. They allowed me, instead, to go off to Twitter and Instagram to stalk Bison. It was silly how people posted RIP on the deceased timelines like there was a social media division in heaven. I dug through condolence messages and pictures. There had to be a clue somewhere. After a few minutes, I was far too deep into the Instagram of a mutual friend, a girl named Mandy who had more beauty than brains. There was an overload of her pictures and I wasn’t complaining. 500 similar selfies with ‘inspiring’ captions later, it got old and I had to find something to do with the day. There was nothing to do when one is dosed on morphine and confined to a hard hospital bed.

I was a loner. It was late in the afternoon and all of my supposed friends had plans that somehow didn’t include me. Football was on so I turned on the tiny TV. It wasn’t my team playing but I wasn’t in the position to be picky so I endured through the showers and watched football. My entire being was aching for a cold beer. More than that I was wishing that absolutely anybody I knew would pop by and I would have someone to engage. I’d take anything. Anyone. Even the annoying Jehovah’s Witnesses I dodged at home. My guardian angel was on alert. Someone called out my name. I looked up and there was Kundabene.

“You never struck me as one with no friends. A stabbing and still nobody here? No girlfriend, church mates, work mates, neighbours, nothing?” she said to me.

“Gotta give the babes a chance to catch me alone, kapena bamani kumbwa but I’m always with a bunch of niggas.” I ignored her entire alliteration that I had nobody.

I had people before I left the country and it took me a while to settle since my return. Months and months to settle. That was my reasoning and I was sticking to that.

She laughed.

“Wherever those babes are they are taking forever to get here.”

“I see one. More are coming.”

She rolled her eyes.

“I’ve brought one thing. Beef stew and mashed potato. That is my last offer.”

My stomach growled when I caught the aroma of her beef stew. I took her up on the offer.

“Why aren’t you with your people? No boyfriend? No church mates, work mates, neighbours, nothing?” I echoed her.

“Bison was my people. So you are now my people by association. My workmates stay at work, neighbours in the neighbourhood and I have no boyfriend. I am not the one who got stabbed so why would I be with my church mates here?” She said.

Touché.

I made a mental note to read her conversations with Bison in the phone.

We lazily held a conversation while we ate. I ate slowly and the food had no taste, I could smell it but I couldn’t quite taste it. Morphine. She talked freely about herself and filled up whatever had the potential to grow into an awkward silence. We were the lonely singles. I never for a moment felt like it. Usually talking to single girls is a drag. They are so keen on selling the marriage idea or trying to hook themselves up with you or your single friends. They look at the single life like it’s a curse. But not her. She asked about my economics degree and where I wanted to go with it. She told me about her friends, she shared her opinions and what gave them substantiality. She talked a lot, in a way that was pleasant.

Our friendship was building quickly and easily, she promised to introduce me to her friends who were young and fun loving professionals. It seemed like a good idea. As I spoke to her I caught wind of where Bison acquired her lively energy, where she learned to be driven and present in her own life. We spoke for hours about nothing and everything. Kundabene was as easy to talk to as she had been when I first met her. Between all the conversations and getting to know each other, I decided in my mind to get on Kundabene’s good side. She was probably the only person I could end up asking about the mysterious Mandy. I kept her smiling, thinking it was the secret to keeping her on my good side.

It was getting dark and my parents were arriving. As we bid farewell, Kundabene came to my bed, bent over and planted a kiss, full on my lips before she walked away with the poise of a queen. I’d have convinced myself it was my imagination if it wasn’t for her taste on my lips.

That did not go as planned.