Finally, the day cometh

As I lay in a cheap hotel room, fighting off attacks from relentless mosquitoes and resilient bedbugs, not even pesky insects can ruin the mood for me.

I wear a majestic smile on my face and channel all the triumphant victors who’ve come before me. If only on a smaller personal scale, I now know how Dedan Kimathi, Musa Mwariama or Waruhiu Itote felt after trouncing the settlers. I feel the win.

“Wipe the smirk off your face,” my fiancée Sgt Sophia says, pulling the stained bedsheet up to her chin. “You look like a hunter after a kill.”

“I’m sorry, dear.”

The truth is, I’m really not all that sorry. Not after I’ve waited for this moment for three long years.

“This isn’t how I pictured this happening,” Sophia says.

“Neither did I, but even the greenest feed still produces white milk from a cow.”

“Oh, wow. Did you just make that up?”

I hold my chin up with pride. “I did. Like it?”

“It’s actually quite smart. I’ve never heard you talk like that.”

I give her my sexiest look. “Admit it. There’s a lot about me you didn’t know until…” I consult an invisible watch on my wrist. “What was it—an hour ago?”

Sophia’s eyes bulge. “One hour? Is that how long you thought we…”

“Give or take.”

“One hour?” She laughs the way she does that makes me feel so happy and so stupid at the same time. “You must think too much of yourself.”

In case you’re still not in the loop, after three years of dating, and being engaged for a third of that time, Sophia and I finally consummated our love. That’s right. I just made love to the most beautiful woman in the world, if only to spite her mother.

It started after Mrs Kali, Sophia’s mother, thwarted our effort to elope and get married at a judge’s chamber.

“Wait!” Sophia said as we left the courthouse. “What’s the best way to stick it to my mother? The one thing she would absolutely hate but have no control over?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Run away and get married in Somalia? We can become Muslim and she’d have to go through al Shabaab to get to us.”

“I like that. It’s elaborately evil, but impossible. If I know anything about you, it’s that you can’t stand being a bad guy.”

“Oh, and you can?”

“Watch me.”

The next step was the two of us running around Eldoret town, looking for a hotel. At this point, I had no idea what Sophia had in mind.

Frankly, I figured she was hungry and needed to eat. But that only lasted until we came upon this one restaurant and bar that resembled one of those saloons in a Western movie, where you know someone is about to get shot or asked to a shootout at high noon.

“Let’s take a selfie,” Sophia said outside the bar.

“What?” I protested. “This is like the most un-scenic place I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s the point.” She lifted her phone camera. “Look excited.”

I obeyed, then followed her inside the establishment, where she booked us a room.

“It’s only two in the afternoon,” I said.

“Perfect. She goes through her social media at this time.”

As she dragged me up the stairs, I asked, “Who are we talking about exactly?”

“My mother.”

When we got into our room, she proceeded to peck at her phone and show it to me. Below the selfie she had taken outside, was the caption, “About to make sweet love to my boyfriend.”

Sophia smiled. “I just posted it.”