Roses are thorns. Chimutu’s tavern talk shows love is war—easier to start than to stop.
The beer-beggar’s subjects range from singles in hit-and-run sex scandals to the happily married caught pants down.
Being Zikathankalima, I think our donor-fearing country needs a commission of enquiry on why we leave our stable sexual partners and start tangoing with takeaways in holes of shame.
My guzzle tells me only faithfulness shall set us free, but my bottlemates feel it is in our nature to flirt with new things.
“We are all goats, for we always think grass is greener on the other side,” argues Chimimba, who rarely sees a skirt and go to sleep without seeing what it is hiding.
“So, is it really or always greener,” I ask him.
But being a bleating potbellied goat, he switches from Chimutu and I to a sweating woman who has just left the dancefloor to join us in the VIP section of the nightclub. Beckoning her, he flashes a cocktail of new banknotes.
What will stop us from dying like goats if we continue living like goats in times of HIV and Aids? What happened to strategic loving? There is no doubt that Chimimba has money and a potbelly to lure poor lasses, but is that the only reason for deciding to go to bed with them? Does he care about his wife and children? My inner enquiry is interrupted by their lusty talk.
 “So, where do we go?”
“As you like it.”
“In your room or at the lodge?”
“Depends whether you want short-time or full night?”
“Short-time, but subject to renewal if you mesmerise me again.”
In a brink, they disappears. They are in a hurry.
What happened to love? What does the quickie give Chimimba that his wife cannot? Isn’t Mrs Chimimba younger and more gorgeous? Does she talk too much? Does she misfire in bed? Bedroom business is no public, but isn’t it safer for Chimimba to discuss his sexual concerns and expectations with his partner than sleeping around like a goat?
I sip the cold one to eject the midnight thoughts. Suddenly, my phone is dancing to guzzlers’ ringtone: P Square’s Chop My Money. I dash out of the VIP lounge.
“What time are you coming home, Zikatha?”
“Soon, dear, soon.”
It’s my Carol, the mother of our Ulunji. She lectures me on love and loneliness. She cannot take my word because my ‘soon’ is no better than never.
Of course, they are missing me -for absence makes the heart grow fonder.Â
 “Keep waiting, darling. The best things come to those who wait,” I mock her.
She laughs, cautioning: “When I walk away from you, it is not because I don’t care, but I would have realised that you don’t.”
“But I still care, sweetie,” I counter.
“No, you don’t. You stopped giving me your time, heart and flowers the day Ulunji was born,” she says and cuts the line.
Quite strange! Which fisher wastes bait on fish in hand? What’s more childish than married people spoiling each other like teen lovers do on Valentine’s Day?
I am lost in thoughts only to be redeemed by Chimimba’s reappearance. He pulls me back into the VIP lounge where the self-crowned VIPs are visible to the crowd on the dancefloors downstairs.
 “Much as we love to spot action and attractions in the crowd, nobody in the open bar ought to see us. What is a VIP bar if it endangers our privacy?” he complains.
He feels a VIP club is not like its namesake at the stadium, saying it must facilitate our sightseeing without exposing us too much.
“Imagine the ghetto women charged me K10 000 just because she saw me in this so-called VIP area,” he discloses.
I laugh aloud and Chimutu tells us why the exclusive zone is partly open: Guaranteeing biggies’ privacy and access to beautiful things in the club often leaves them in temptations when they are left alone with stunning staff members.
“The nightclub would not have shut down its private VIP cabins if a waitress and a senior minister, who booked the lounge and its waitress to himself, did not litter the tiled floor with used condoms,” narrates Chimutu.
Surely, no enquiry can explain the things honourables do behind their lovers’ backs.
However, is sleeping around the legacy worth the jazz if the donor-fearing country is serious about kicking out HIV and Aids?
