Holding On

Chapter 18

Chapter 18

One thing that I have noticed about my man is that he wears his heart on his sleeve. Whether he's upset, happy or sad you'll be able to see that on his face. Him being so in-tune with his emotions brings me so much joy because my mother raised my brothers in such a way that they don't feel embarrassed or 'less than men' when they show or deal with their emotions. My mom is a big advocate of dealing with your emotions as opposed to bottling them up to a point where they destroy you, be it you're a woman or a man. Also, imagine being in a relationship with an emotionally unavailable partner. Yho, could never be me. We are sitting around the dinner table having our supper and this man of mine is struggling through it. He's shoving spoons that are loaded with way too much food in his mouth just so he can get this part of our evening over and done with and as fast as we can so that we can get to the second phase of our evening. His recklessness has caused him to almost choke twice now. He's almost done eating and he's been throwing glances at me nonstop. It's probably because I'm eating slowly as I'm trying to taunt him even further.

"Bhabha, is your food okay?" he asks me as I pretend to be deep in thought while playing with my food. (Baby)

"Yes love, the food is fine."

"Then why aren't you eating sthandwa sam?" (My love)

"I don't know. I just..."

I try to hide the ghost smile on my face. What I'm doing is honestly silly, but I don't want him to catch me out in my lie.

"Should I pack it away so that you can have it later on or tomorrow?" he asks me, already getting up from his seat. I hold his forearm and stop him abruptly,

"No need for that, my love. Let me try and finish it," I say.

"Okay, but you know you don't have to force the food down if you don't have an appetite, right?"

"Yes love I know," I respond with a smile on my face.

"Okay then, let me take a shower so long. It's been a long day."

He gets up from the dinner table and takes his plate and tray with him to the kitchen. He comes back and plants a kiss on my temple before heading out towards our bedroom. As soon as he leaves, I start gobbling down the food, I'm excited now. The fact that he mentioned that he had a long day reaffirms my decision to give him a massage. I just hope this is something that he will enjoy because one can never be too sure when it comes to these men, especially Xhosa men. As soon as I'm done eating, I rush to the kitchen and drop my dish in the sink and switch on the kettle so that I can change the water in the bowl with the oil as it may be lukewarm now. I hurry off to the bedroom to set up for my man. I take some of the candles he'd used when I arrived on Friday and light them and place them around the room. I find dry rose petals in one of the drawers of the bedroom pedestals and I scatter them around our bed and bedroom floor too. I remove the pillows on our bed and place them on the couch while leaving only the standard pillows on the bed. I take a clean towel from the wardrobe and place it on the bed so that I don't spoil the bed covers. After I'm done, I dim the lights. I take my phone on top of the vanity and start playing music softly. I take the bowl with the oil and head to the kitchen to replace the water inside. When I get back from the kitchen, I find Siya standing in the middle of our bedroom looking around in awe at the setup. He has a towel wrapped around his waist and he looks absolutely magnificent. The soft light that's beaming from the candles bounces so gently against his skin adding an extra element of shimmer to his already glistening skin that's covered with water droplets.

"What's going on, love?"

"Uhm, I thought that I could offer you a massage seeing that you've had a rough day today."