CHAPTER 1

Red Hibiscus

Summer was home coming, and really it was when the early hours’ sun set in Mr. Fanny’s eyes, while in bed. Mrs. Fanny had let loose the blinds upon leaving the bathroom.

“Oh flying cheese!” groaned Fanny, with his pale oval face scowled from sleep. “What the hell is that?” With his palms he masked the rays shooting into his eyes, as he dug his hairy unbuttoned body from the duvet.

“Morning sun,” said Mrs. Fanny, her red buttocks rolling in her black thong. “Get ready for work. We got bills to pay.”

Her flabby bust welcomed him the moment she turned to the mirror opposite. Her athletic body gave a push in him. A daughter had passed through that body, yes only Kate had passed through that body and yet she still appealed to him and seized his blood flow. Recently she had dropped her car, and resorted to walking a few neighborhoods before getting a taxi to work. As a fitness nurse in her prime, she was in the business of preaching health to her patience through her body; long smooth face, housing beak nose and kiss-it lips, heaven’s potter breasts and flat tummy that sank into firm hips and dare-it buttocks. The 45-year -old mother of one stood tall on earth’s foundation.

Mr. Fanny squeezed his lips three sixty degrees, “Our butt is gaining flesh. Did you do lip that I don’t know of?” He stood, and he watched closely as her buttocks flailed with each step.

She stared in the mirror to behold the judgment, “Nothing as such. Or did you intend to say I’m gaining pounds?” she mumbled and turned to meet his lips closer to her. “I didn’t let the sun to wake you so you could make love.” She poured herself a coffee and had a sip.

He breathed into her face, “I love you and love you the more the day you gave me the best daughter on earth.” He held her arms and she was still cold from the shower. He could feel her trembling body, and she could feel her bulging zipper, and she needed him into her. Their face about meeting for a kiss and a rustling sound from upstairs interrupted them, before a band from a studio recorder buzzed through.

“Talk of the devil,” murmured Fanny, his hands giving up on her body.

A shrill voice of Blues hung across the whole house. “How many times am I gonna to tell Kate to stop disturbing the neighborhood with her music? You gifted her the studio, didn’t you?” queried Mrs. Fanny.

“But I didn’t gift her hell.” He watched her squeeze into her tuxedo, and his thought smacking lips at her lustful body.

The sonorous voice persisted in a rather offensive manner and they both vanished to her studio.

“Ancient girl you are disturbing the hood,” sounded Mr. Fanny at the door, and Mrs. Fanny stood flogging her with her eyes that held fire.

Kate was all smiles. She looked golden this summer and her tapering body said her age without much guess. She had athletic body like her mom and her ever smiling face could bribe heaven. She was cute to the sole, at birth her parents had wondered if she had chromosome or just cute DNA. Her wide long nose was her father’s and the crazy-over-you looks remained a mystery. But Mrs. Fanny had narrated she inherited it from her grandmother.

She removed her ear pod and winced as though needle sped into her flesh. “Am I going to keep reminding you two my birthday every year?”

“Holy Judas!” exclaimed Mr. Fanny.

Kate sank into the chair, cloning into a sorrowful mood of disappointment.

Mrs. Fanny pulled to her and coiled her up. She held her face and stroked her blond ponytail and pressed her face into her bust. “Pardon me darling, blessed are you amongst girls not bitches.”

“Your mom and I have no excuse to justify our forgetfulness this time.” Mr. Fanny hesitated. “We are going to throw you a party today, sweetheart.”

“Yes a big shout,” added Mr. Fanny. “And the party will be scheduled for late hour. Oh I wish I could stop work just for today. Look up here, heaven’s baby, I’m gonna return early for the party, ok?” Your dad will return early for the party too.”

Mr. Fanny cut in, “Hello Cinderella, you’re alone. Today is my off. I’m going to plan the party so you can join us later or say be our guest. Kate deserves the dragon’s throne and I’m going to fetch her one.” His brawl folded in thought. “I will be having some issues; I have never planned a party before.”

Kate was all smiles now and she felt well nursed from her mother’s strokes on her hair.

“You just got yourself a new job, do it as you think. I got to hit the road. See you angels later.” She pecked Kate on the brawl and kissed her husband and set out to work. “Do not plan a wag party.” She warned from the corridor.

“A good reminder of what I can do,” he replied and squeezed his lips tauntingly.

Mr. Fanny picked up the phone to consult a few pals about planning a birthday party. He was leaving the studio when he barged in on a visitor.

Kate could hear voices but resumed her practice regardless. “I just came to celebrate her,” the windy voice said, holding his gift at his back.

Mr. Fanny hesitated to gape at the gift. “Oh she’s gonna like it. Hope you are going to stay back for the party?” He smiled and kept to his phone call, walking downstairs.

H e shook his crew cut hair, “Yeah.”

The visitor was Brian, a 20-year-old smart, I’m-a-survival kid from the neighborhood. They were family and his parents had introduced him to Kate fort nights ago, and within his mind a lot had happened; he had searched her on Facebook, found her smiling stilly, memorized her name like history, surfed through her bio and saw her birthday was today. He hadn’t felt a thing for a girl before and he fought within himself to believe in his hand was a priceless bouquet of flower he bought for a girl his parents introduced as family a few nights ago.

Kate was so much carried away with her singing session. Her eyes were shut out of this world. She hadn’t noticed his presence. As she opened her eyes to behold her uninvited-wanted guest, her adrenaline turned to wine. Brian kept a thoughtful smile and she wondered what she was doing, whether she was smiling or not, her eyes as hard as flint.

“Hi, em,” she stuttered, smacking her lips and winking firmly. She took off her ear pod, and initiated her contagious smile. “Make yourself comfortable.” She directed him to a cane chair close by. “Have a sit.” She wanted to stop repeating herself but the impossible was possible. And she was forcing back her smile uneasily.

“You got a nice voice,” said Brian, looking away from the cane chair, admiring her studio. “Gorgeous piece you got here.”

“Oh this,” replied Kate, smiling and gaping round her studio. “My father’s love to me.”

“Really,” said Brian generously “I got you another,” he mumbled and pulled his hand from behind. “Happy birthday.”

“Oh, oh, I’m pleased, so colorful and ..hmm…” she brought it to her nostrils. “it smells of bur berry. “I love bur berry.” Her joy was a drumstick.

Brian stood smiling, Oh thank goodness she accepted it, he said in his head. “I got to go now.”

Oh so soon, she wished she could say it out; she wished she could tell him to stay back till party hour; she wished he could be her companion for the moment, sing with her and tell her much about himself. She wished she could tell him a lot of things, things that only time could tell. “My parents are giving me a shout, hope you will come around.”

“Oh yes, I’ll,” he affirmed, blushing.

When he left, Kate discovered herself snared in a web of indescribable feeling. She only felt the smile that hung across her face and her interest in hasting to the window to behold him walking down the street- her stare followed his youthful prance until he diverted into a white penthouse duplex. Good he lives in my hood. We have a lot to explore, she said thoughtfully, putting her hand on her chest to feel her dancing heart. She lay in bed; smiling at her thought- does he know my name and every snippet about me? Ami feeling a thing for this fella or am I planning for a night mare whose battle ground would be regret. No, he loves me, got me a sweet smelling flower. She gazed upon the flower and the flower gazed back. She kept at her smile and prayed God to make the feeling real and not a scoff. She sat up and reached to the flower, stroked it, brought it to her nostrils. He must be smelling of bur berry too, she said in her head. Her thought sped off like a ticking time bomb again- does flower signify love? He got me a flower doesn’t mean he feels a thing for Kate. It could be the only gift in the grocery store he visited, it could be his idea of a birthday gift for a girl, it could be out of his love for nature, also giving could be a pushover for him. It could be… it could be… she sensed the raging war her thought was orchestrating and then she gave up, hoping to ask mother or anybody blessed with the fecundity of answers. She looked upon her ear pod and mic and then let an easy sigh as she lay back – she had lost interest in her singing practice.

Brian barged in on his mother fixing a hot velvet cake in the kitchen. Her words caught him about taking the stairs. “Today’s Kate’s birthday just want you to know,” she washed her hands in the runny water. “Her father phoned us about a party.”

“Really” she shouldn’t know I visited her, he said in his head.

“I’m fixing her a velvet,” she implied, got hold of her Starbucks and sipped swiftly. “What’re you giving her for a birthday gift?”

“Me?” he sighed, winked, stroked his hair. “I got to think about it.

She added, “A flower would make an incredible gift.”

Brian flinched and his heart rolled like a snooker ball hitting the four walls of the board radically. “A flower? Tell me more,” he folded his arms and gave a keen attention.

“Aside flowers being feline, it celebrates the unimaginable divinity of womanhood and an encompassing rare feeling and honor for the opposite sex.” She smiled. “ Oh,” her flawless fingers came on her bust, “Your father got me the nicest of flowers when he wooed me as a kid. He’s indeed a love robot.”

“A rare feeling?” He took a sit, expecting a lecture.

He argued if Kate would see it in that light. Indeed his feelings for her were rare as the eggs of a dragon. “Where’s dad?” he asked.

She had dished out food at the dining and knitting the edges of the table clothes. “He went to the golf.”

“I’ll be upstairs,” said Brian, jostled by his troublesome thought.

“Son,” called his mother, “I haven’t been seeing much of you nowadays. Pipe low, neighborhood security has snatched the better Brian in you. Gun violence is one plague that got no immunization.”

“Can we discuss that later, mom. I got to laze this head upstairs,” he ran up the stairs.

“Lunch is served,” she said watching Brian disappear out of sight.

Best eaten at leisure,” beamed Brian from somewhere close to his room.

He banged the door and rested on it before listening to his thought replay his mother’s words- a flower would make an indelible gift… and an encompassing rare feeling and honor for the opposite sex. He sank in his bed, stared into the ceiling thoughtfully- Kate might have hurled the flower into a corner and continued with her music. Was he that quick to go? He should’ve stayed back. That was too bossy with sprinkles of pride. She was loving him already which was evident in her asking him to stay back. He hissed and his thought spoke on- her eyes welcomed me into her life and in her heart were mansions built of roses. He snapped out of his thought, reached to his mobile phone and flipped to her photos, the ones he downloaded from her Facebook , and he drowned in a cloud of smile. He was going to be in his best of clothes and glory, because tonight wasn’t a birthday but his first date.

His thought came knocking again and it hung around Kate. He busied himself with it until day dissipated to night.