Thread by @CSakwah

STORY THREAD.

My girlfriend believes that all executive barbershops with female barbers are fitted with massage rooms and brothels that offer their customers aftershave steamy massages and sex. One day I came back home with a scrubbed face.

She asked me if I had had a cut in such a barbershop. I denied kipetero kiyesu. To acknowledge that I visited a barbershop of the ilk would have been an admission equivalent to confessing that I had visited a brothel.

More often, the mention of an executive barbershop arouses moral contempt and aversion in the minds of wives and girlfriends.
Mariana and I once walked past an executive barbershop of such inclination in Ruaka. The barbershop was famed for its happy-ending after-shave services.

Inside, a beautiful barber was shaving a man. The man was sitting on the executive shaving chair while the lady stood with her legs spread between the man’s laps. The lady’s V-Shaped cropped top exposed her rich cleavage too close to the man’s face.

From afar, one would have thought the man’s face was downcast between her breasts while she shaved him. Mariana frowned at the sight. I coveted the sight.
‘You want a cut as well?’ Mariana asked when she caught me covetously staring at the other man.

I had heard complimentary customer experience stories from men who had cuts in such barbershops, and to say that I wasn’t tempted by the desire of a woman shaving my head would be a lie. ‘Me? A cut in such a barbershop, never!

These ladies cannot pull a beautiful cut like the Congolese barber who owns the Kinyozi shanty next to our apartment pulls.’
‘Are you sure you have never shaved in these kinds of barbershops?’ She asked as if she was unsatisfied by my reply.

‘Me?’ I asked her again with my hand on my chest. I bent forward, scooped a nailful of soil, and licked it, ‘Mh, I swear by the name of my dead grandfather, I have never set a foot in such a barbershop. As a matter of fact,’

I lied, ‘It is a taboo in our culture for a lady to shave a man’s head.’
As much as I had never shaved in a barbershop of the ilk, I constantly kept thoughts of the experience that would come with a woman’s sleek fingers on my head. My girlfriend dismissed the discussed

but I could detect pure dissatisfaction with my reply in her tone. To prove my honesty, I picked a route that passed next to the Congolese’s kinyozi. This, to prove to her that I was a loyal customer to the Congolese Kinyozi.
We found him sitting lazily on a crudely made bench

outside his shanty. As soon as he spotted me, he rose to his feet. ‘Long time no see, braza!’ he said.
I intended to prove to the disgruntled Mariana that I constantly shaved at Lokonga's kinyozi, then he welcomed me with a Long-time-no-see-braza pleasantry?

‘Are you back for a shave?’
Mariana stared at me. I am sure questions were stringing in her mind, choking her with accusations. If indeed I constantly shaved at my Congolese kinyozi, why then did he greet me with the long-time-no-see-braza phrase?

I imagined her string of thoughts. She had a habit of magnifying her thoughts unnecessarily. Where I shaved was a bid deal to her. No woman would find comfort in her man shaving in a place where she perceived brothels existed.
‘Since COVID struck us, I have been

working from home, braza. With limited mobility, I cut down on shaving as well,’ I explained. I had no intentions of shaving. Nonetheless, I walked into the shanty to prove a point against Mariana’s insecurities.
‘Long time ago, one had to queue to be shaved here.

Sometimes we used to book an appointment. It is strange to find you idling. Has Covid affected your business as well?’ I asked my Congolese berbar.
‘Braza, Covid does not affect one’s growth of hair, or does it?’ He asked.

‘Ever since those scantily clad, licentious. and customer-snatching ladies launched the executive barbershop a few blocks from here, all my loyal male customers have since migrated to their barbershop.’ Lokonga’s voice was hurt.

His cry was paged on the fact that he didn’t possess the beauty and sophisticated bodies that attracted his male customers to the ladies’ barbershop. Left alone, he would have lamented the unfairness achieved by women’s empowerment in his industry.
A short silence followed.

Then he cracked the whip. ‘Before you came, I was thinking about you.’ He said.
‘Thinking about me?’ I wondered loudly at the inspiration behind another man thinking about me.
‘It has been a while since you visited my place. I thought you were among the perverse customers

that ditched me for the ladies!’
That was a vile accusation to bring up in the presence of my girlfriend. I thought. I twitched with uneasiness. Mariana’s eye transfixed on me, I could tell through the Kinyozi’s cracked wall mirror. Our eyes met through the mirror.

They awaited my defense against the accusations.
‘Augh! I have never been there. Those ladies can’t shave as beautifully as you do, man.’
‘True,’ Lokonga beamed with delight at the compliment. ‘Those bedroom after-shave services are the reasons why Adams, your neighbor,

had a quarrel with his wife a week ago. I heard his wife found him in the barbershop with one of the girls gliding her breast on his back.’
Mariana’s eyes shuddered. Why was Lokonga mentioning prurient stories in the presence of my girlfriend? He was confirming Mariana's fears.

She was keen on the story, her eyes agreed with what Lokonga was saying. ‘You know, Adams stopped shaving here. Out of guilt, whenever he shaved in that bedroom, he wears a mavin or a hood on his head to hide the fact that he has shaved elsewhere.

He feels guilty for ditching me in favor of those voluptuous ladies. Recently, he has been wearing mavins every day.’ Lokonga, just like most barbers was jealous that one of his customers had developed a relationship with another barber.

He went on lamenting and cursing the new barbershop.
On our way home, perhaps inspired by the assurance that I indeed shaved at Lokonga’s barbershop, Mariana walked while holding my hand. ‘Sometimes, just like women, barbers exhibit jealous and insecure tendencies towards their

customers, just like Lokonga is jealous that Adams is now shaving elsewhere,’ I said. Mariana pulled her hand away. We walked in silence. I thought her insecurities towards the executive barbershops were unfounded and lame.

Two months later, I received an interview invitation by @PulseLiveKenya at their offices in Kilimani. The interview was initially scheduled at 9 AM. A friend, Ken, who works at Safaricom, offered to offer me a lift in his car to ABC Place from where I would have taken

a taxi to @PulseLiveKenya offices behind Valley Arcade. On our way to ABC, I received a call from Pulse Kenya requesting if it was fine with me to push the interview to noon from 9 AM. I was fine with it. I shared with Ken the same development. He sighed.

‘I wondered how you were to attend the interview with your hair and beards looking a warthog's back hair.’
‘It is nothing. Authors are known for their ragged grooming.’
‘There is a barbershop in Westlands where I get really nice cuts.’ Ken offered.

‘You should sample it before the interview with @PulseLiveKenya.’
He drove to Westlands. At the established, we were met by enviable ambiance and beauty. A barbershop and spa facade with beautiful women on the billboard enticed my eyes.

At the entrance, Ken was welcomed with the familiarity and warmth of the beautiful damsels. The smiles on their faces made me understand why Ken’s hair had mysteriously stopped growing a few months ago. For months, I had been sympathetic to him.

‘My friend has a media interview with Pulse Kenya,’ Ken said. ‘Chezeni kinyinyi!’ I was welcomed into the room. It was cozy. As soon as I sat, two of the ladies stood beside the chair. One was holding a shaving machine that did not buzz as annoyingly loud as Lokonga’s machines.

‘I am Cate,’ she said. ‘I will be your barber today.’
I cleared my voice. ‘I am Sakwah,’ I said.
‘How would you like shaved, Mr. Sakwah?’ The second girl asked, maintaining their smile. I skimmed around the room to locate those posters with celebrity pictures synonymous

with my hood’s kinyozi. At Lokonga’s kinyozi, there were posters stuck on his wall with Bow Wow, Pogba, Neymar, and other celebrities’ favorite haircuts photos. With no pictures to pick from, I described how I wanted to be shaved.
‘Relax, Collins. I am about to start shaving.

In case of any discomfort, let me know!’ Cate said. She sounded like an airplane attendant preparing me for a plane flight to cloud nine. Then she lay her hands on my head. Wee. The jazz music, her hands on my head, her colleagues’ chitchats created a haven with a lullaby tune.

I was only awakened from it by a phone call. ‘Would you like to pick that?’ Cate asked. I pulled my phone from my pocket. It was Mariana.
‘No!’ I said. I chose to ignore her call. Picking her call in one of the places that made her more insecure was like picking her call next

to my side dish.
The second lady washed my head and face after the shave.
I was asked to follow two of the ladies to another room. A massage room, just like Mariana had said. I was led to a changing chamber where I pulled my clothes off and wrapped a towel on my body.

It was going down, I thought.
‘How would you like your message, Mr. Sakwah?’
‘Body to body, wet, oily, and slippery.’ I thought to say. I lay on my back and the masseuses started massaging my body. The feeling sent me to cloud-9 next to brother Ocholla.

The expertise of their hands on my body felt like they were squeezing my born marrows from my borns and melting my body with mindblowing pleasure.
At the end of the shave, I felt like I had a new skin, and brain as well. Ken asked for the bill.

As they processed the bill from the counter Ken said that he will pay, a little bit louder than he ought to pronounce his offer.
After my interview with Pulse Kenya, I called Mariana. I lied that she had called when I was being readied for the interview.

I got home and the first thing that she noted was how bright and moisturized my face was, as well as the cut. For a lady who frequently scrubbed her face, it was easy to tell that my face had been scrubbed. Definitely, I did not buy my new face from Lokonga’s kinyozi.

I would have needed to take a shower to wash away the after-shave hair off my face had I shaved at Lokonga’s kinyozi.
‘Nice shave,’ she said. ‘I see Lokonga is now scrubbing faces after the shave to attract more customers? I see.’ I

I treated that as a statement rather than a question. I mumbled a thank you. Mariana could barely stop staring at my face. I imagined a lot was going through her head, that overthinker. I was determined to ignore all her ‘Where I had shaved?’ questions.

In the evening, she requested that we have a walk around our hood. It was not a unique request because we used to have evening walks together. I walked to the closet to pick my hood and mavin. One, it was cold, two, just in case I met Lokonga on the way and he started behaving

as If I had dumped him for a new kinyozi.
‘Babe, it is a walk. We are exercising. You don’t need a hood or a mavin,’ Mariana said.
‘It is very cold,’ I insisted on wearing the hood on my head.

Mariana went by changing her clothes without fussing about my insistence on covering my head. Then she dropped the guilty-inducing statement. ‘I met Adams yesterday. He was wearing a hood on his head. As soon as I saw him, I grinned. Thank God I had a mask on.

He did not note that I was laughing.’
‘Why were you laughing?’ I asked.
‘I remembered when Lokonga accused Adams that he wore hoods and mavin whenever he shaved at the brothel.’ She laughed. Her laughter was more provocative more than genuine.

We had spent the whole afternoon together. Why was she bringing up the story about Adams wearing a hood at a time when I was about to pull on my hood? Suddenly, I felt guilt. I decided against it.
While stepping out, she suddenly changed our usual evening route

and took a road that passed next to Lokonga’s barbershop. I knew very well not to protest or ask why she had picked the lane. I prayed and hoped not to find Lokonga around.
As if fate was working against me, we found Lokonga sitting on his usual bench.

When he spotted me, his eyes downcast, his shoulders dropped melancholically. He was saddened by the prospect of having lost yet another loyal customer. I wondered what I had done to deserve an insecure girlfriend and a jealousy barber.
‘Braza, nice cut.’

He said with forced cheerfulness.
‘Thanks.’ I said.
‘I would not have trimmed your beards that way. Whoever gave your beards a cut is a novice in the game.’ Lokonga said while Mariana cast her eyes on my side. That was like it, confirmation that I had not shaved at Lokonga’s.

Mariana stopped talking to me until we came back to the house. Her fears had been confirmed. Her boyfriend had shaved in the executive barbershop with a fitted brothel. I was forced to tell her the truth when she prolonged her talking protest.
‘And they scrubbed your face?’

‘Yes.’
‘And massage you?’
‘Yes.’
‘By a man or woman.’
‘Ladies.’
‘Women then. And?’
‘And what else? That was all, love. If you don’t believe, ask Ken.’
‘Who? Ken? The guy whose girlfriend left him two weeks for cheating on her?’ She paused.

‘To imagine that I wasted my energy calling you to wish you luck! You ignored my call because of why? Because of those whores?’ She asked and answered her question.

On my birthday last month, she came back home with shaving machines and face scrubbing creams. She spent a week watching Youtube videos to learn how to shave and scrub faces. And now, she shaves and scrubs my face after two weeks.