Sanity

War

"I love you."

"I love you too Mduduzi."

"No, no I mean I really love you. As in I want you to have my babies and let it be known that you belong to me."

She breathed in the musk of his dark roast skin and ignored the desire prodding her to take him in again. She needed to rest, he needed to rest. Soon it would be morning and she didn't want him to go to work tired again. 

"I can feel your grin Mavis. Just say yes Mduduzi I'll marry you. You're the love of my life." He mocked in a high pitched voice.

She burst into ripples of laughter that hugged his heart.

"I've always imagined a marriage proposal a little different from this. I know you're just saying this because of the satisfaction of sex." 

He sat up , resting on his elbow to look at her. Her eyes shone with mischief in the moonlight, her pretty hands covering her pearly grin.

"How did you always imagine it then?" 

" Roses, candle lit dinner, a ring. You know, romance." She giggled."Rest, it's only a couple of hours before you to have wake up for work."

He groaned, pulled her closer with her glorious mounds cushioning his manhood in delightful warmth. He reached for her breast to perhaps seduce her into his desires but she intertwined her fingers into his and told him to sleep, he had to obey such beautiful authority.

*********************

"Mavis come on man! Make it snappy! Am I just going to starve in my own house?" MaNgidi snapped through a thick cloud of smoke.

"It's Friday today ma."

"And so what?! Make me some damn food you-"

"Ok, ok I know I'm late but I got ribs!" Mduduzi announced as he barged into the kitchen.

Mavis sighed a breath she didn't even know she was holding. MaNgidi enveloped him like a favourite child who'd rescued her from an insubordinate maid. Her mood had shifted so swiftly from menacing to sweet it was sickening to watch. She complained about being stuck with Mavis all week and how she'd become accustomed to being surrounded by intelligent people. Mavis was a huge inconvenience in her life. 

"Look what I got for you." Mduduzi pulled out a box of chocolate and handed it to Mavis blatantly ignoring his step mother. 

"You mean me." MaNgidi snatched the box from Mavis.

"No,no maNgidi. I mean Mavis."

"Oh!" She chortled "So she can share it between all of us equally!"

"Noooo. So she can enjoy it alone as an award for not strangling you while she was alone with you all week."

Tina snickered and ran out the door. 

"You've got jokes my boy. Where's the grocery, today is Friday?" 

Mduduzi shrugged and joined his father in the living room to enjoy the ribs he'd bought. MaNgidi's  face was stone cold as she bore into Mavis. She turned to walk away then as an after thought slapped the box out of Mavis' hands and sneered. 

***************

MaNgidi had known something was fishy when Mduduzi had gifted the maid the previous Friday but seeing Mavis under Mduduzi in clear ecstasy still shook her. She tip toed out to the car willing herself to breathe and calm down. Her knuckles were grey from clenching her fists but she managed to punch the colour back on the hooter. Mavis was standing in the way of her luxury life, that dirty street kid had to pay.

She was at her window now with flushed skin and those overflowing lips of hers mouthing 'mama'. MaNgidi squeezed her eyes shut summoning her patience from the pits of rage that were engulfing her. This puny street rat was the reason she had to use her own money to buy groceries. She'd rescued her from winter in the pipes and this was how she repayed her? By draining her resources with her vagina?

"Mama do you need my help?" She'd opened her car door now letting out the strand of sanity maNgidi was holding onto.

"Mam-"

The diamond of her wedding band connected with the overflowing lower lip with a crunch.The rage must have blinded her, blacked her out because next thing she knew Nkosnathi had her in an arm lock and the neighbours were staring. Mavis' face was covered in blood laying unconscious on Mduduzi's lap. Everything had happened so quickly she just didn't understand.

Mduduzi drove Mavis to the hospital while maNgidi explained to her husband that it was all a Mavis' fault. Nkosnathi kept correcting her, confusing her.Tina didn't even go into the main house for dinner as she always did and Thandi wouldn't stop crying. MaNgidi couldn't understand why nobody saw why this was all Mavis' fault, why they didn't see the need for her to be punished. Once Mavis returned from the hospital she would apologise and they'd all see that she was right.

**************************************

The sun rays filled the living room exposing maNgidi's livid tremor under the blanket of smoke she exhaled. The more she waited the more she realised that Mavis deserved a more organised beating. She'd compared belts at 1am then abandoned them for a guava tree branch at 3am. Maybe Mduduzi would realise how ugly she was with stripes on her body.

As maNgidi was dozing off she saw an unfamiliar figure carrying bags in, or was it out? By the time she woke up at 12pm the boys beds were stripped and their wardrobes were empty.