One last night…

By JACKSON BIKO

Have you ever wondered what happens at a stag party? What it is that your husband- to-be and his friends get up to on the last night before he is finally yours? Well, here it is right from the horse’s mouth.

You can call me Mitch. Of course that’s not my real name; I just like the sound of it. Right now, I’m in a private house somewhere in an upmarket address. It’s a beautiful house; two bathrooms, four bedrooms, a massive living room, a balcony and a garden.

I don’t know who owns this house, what I know, is that it’s goes for Sh25,000 a night. My friends, who have been here several times from the look of things, call it the “house on the hill”.

There are about two dozen men, or more, in the house, scattered all over the living room, out in the verandah and garden.

Everybody is cradling a bottle or a glass of something alcoholic. The music is thumping. At the edge of the room is a long table where drinks are sold by this huge fellow with a goatee that is dyed white.

Or maybe his goatee is naturally white in colour, who knows? I sure won’t walk up to him to find out. It’s heading to 11pm and the air is heavy with anticipation.

The highlight of this evening will be when the girls finally pitch up. The dancers. Jimmy said not less than 15 girls will be in attendance. Jimmy, he who put this shindig together, is one of my good friends.

Of course that is not his real name; I just like the sound of the name. Putting this show together has taken him two weeks of planning; finding the appropriate venue, sourcing for the dancers, the drinks, the deejay and security which comprises of three beefy fellows with chests the size of my refrigerator.

I’m getting married the day after tomorrow, a church wedding with all the bells and whistles that come with it.

I’m a bit giddy at the prospect of walking down the aisle. It’s a big deal to me at 36 years of age. This is it. And being in this private house is my close friends’ idea of a ‘send-away’ gift.

This is a stag party, my stag party. ‘Every guy needs a decent send off; this is a chapter that you have to close.’

They enthused. I don’t know. Maybe it is, most of them are married and perhaps know better, I don’t know what happens when men cross the threshold, so yes, I trust that this has to be done.

My idea of a stag party has always been a slightly dysfunctional party where men get drunk and beautiful women grind themselves on hypnotised men. This is not altogether a horrible idea when I think about it.

I’ve been on scotch for the past hour now and so I’m a bit tipsy, but I’m also getting restless. Let me tell you about my fiancée Sandy (not her real name of course, again, and again, I just love the sound of that name).

She is the sort of girl who practiced celibacy until she was in her mid-twenties; totally middle of the road and totally faithful to some core beliefs that she sometimes confuse even me. She is a sober person, and by that I mean she doesn’t touch alcohol.

Little wonder I’m marrying her. When I took her to visit my parents, my mom called me aside and whispered to me, “If you let this one go, you will never find another.” Three months later we got engaged on a bobbing dingy off the coast of Mombasa.

The girls finally arrive and you can almost feel everyone hold their breaths. Even though the music is blaring, the room is suddenly filled with an inexplicable silence. They rock up in two vans, with heavily tinted windows.

As soon as the vans come to a stop outside the door, they step out in long heels of different colours; black, red, blue, pink, white, purple. A rainbow of heels.

All the men are suitably inebriated now, and almost tired of each other’s company, to express their relief at the new entrants they all clap enthusiastically.

Picture about 13 grown men, clapping wildly and cat-calling as the vans empty of these beautiful, lithe women.

The women, all smiles and not a hair out of place, shuffle into the house in one long file led by their leader, a slightly older woman but who amazingly has a figure of a teenager. The men, dreamily, follow them inside…the story of the Pied Piper comes to mind as I amble in after everyone else.

The girls head upstairs to change. The men gather around in the living room, every one of them wearing broad smiles, eyes reflexively shifting up the staircase.

Each of these guys paid Sh3,000 to be here. I know only half of them, and as the night wears on, more guys will show up at the gate, with Sh3,000 clutched tight in their fist, wanting to get in on the action. I count the number of guys I knew; maybe seven.

The rest are strangers but only in a manner of speaking because everyone seems to know my name, as we sat together earlier, they would walk over and “wish me luck” and perhaps give me a piece of matrimonial advice. I felt like I was going to fight in Iraq.

The music is killed and standing in the middle of room, the leader of the girls – let’s call her Queen Farida, because I like the name – gives a short speech.

“I’m sure you gentlemen have day jobs. This is our day job, only we prefer to do it at night,” she says to a little good natured chuckle around the room.

“I only have one request from you; I need you to respect my girls. You guys have paid for a dance, and that’s what it will be, a dance. Any disrespect will be handled with the seriousness it deserves, but I’m certain it won’t come to that because you all look like gentlemen.”

More chuckles. She talks concisely and eloquently but with a robust authority that lurks underneath her civility.

She then asks the “man of the night” to take his seat. That will be me so I walk and ease myself into a special red chair in the middle of the room.

She then hands me a box of cigars; Cohiba or something. Someone cuts off the end after which she strikes a match for me and I light up. I feel like a King already.

The music comes back on. The lights dim. The girls come down, dressed (if that is the right word) in anything from hot pants, dresses to shukas and Erica Badu-like head gear. They all retain those high heels.

The men who have made a circle around me cheer even more wildly. I guess the booze is taking effect. The women start dancing within this circle, cycling me like hounds that have smelled blood.

They sway and sashay to the beat. Their skin glistens in this subdued lighting. Some have that glittering thing that they sprinkle on their faces, and so they look like sketches off a fashion sketchpad. It all looks surreal.

At some point, I get a lap dance. In fact, I get lap dances pretty much from every one of those girls. You would imagine that it gets normal, that once you get one good lap dance you’ve gotten them all.

It doesn’t. Every experience is unique. This goes on for a long pleasurable while. After I’ve danced with – or rather after I’ve been danced on by the ladies, the fun is spread to the rest of the boys. It soon becomes a full blown party; pole dance, dirty dancing, you name it.

Queen Farida keeps a close eye on me like a waitress would, and once in a while she asks me if there is anything else I need, ‘anything at all.’ I can’t think of anything more I would want….of course!

But I can imagine my fiancé’s reaction if she would, at this moment, walk through those doors. The bottom would surely fall off and I’m certain she would promptly faint.

Initially she wasn’t for this idea but her friends convinced her that it was only for this night anyway.

At some point in the night, one of the girls will hold my hand and drag me to the verandah where, surprisingly, she will engage me in a light banter. I say surprising because it’s not every day that you meet a stripper who is keen to talk.

They don’t talk, they dance, that’s their job description. Okay, she doesn’t exactly talk, she more like asks questions. I imagine that Jimmy set this up, to make it seem as casual and real as it can.

Even though I can tell she doesn’t care about my answers, she still asks me questions. She asks about my fiancée, how we met and if I’m nervous about the wedding.

She asks what colour of suit I will be wearing; she asks if I will wear a hat, and when I tell her I won’t, she says she thinks I would look absolutely hot in one. I think about it for exactly three seconds.

She asks all sorts of mundane but amusing questions and I indulge her. She even asks me if my fiancee owns anything kinky, like leather pants.

When I tell her she is a Christian who doesn’t wear leather pants to bed, she laughs for so long and so genuinely, that I’m left a little surprised.

Strangely she finds that amusing. I’m seated on the railing of the verandah cradling my glass of whisky. She stands between my legs. She smells of something citrusy.

My answers to her interrogation are very brief and vague; you will excuse me if I’m reluctant to talk about my fiancée with a woman who stands between my legs dressed in little more than her 4 inch heels.

What do I feel right now, seated here with a scantily-dressed woman standing between my legs, a few hours before I walk the love of my life down the aisle, you might ask?

If you are hoping I will say I feel guilt, I won’t. I would be lying. I don’t feel any guilt at all; I’m totally expunged of it.

There is a slight discomfort though, but above that I feel an excitement and not because this dancer is now resting her hands on my thigh, but an excitement that my life is about to change, that in two days, I will be having a ring around my finger, and that ring will signify a milestone in my life.

In short, I’m thinking of my fiancée in little spurts, but the feelings are not fuelled by guilt but rather by a realisation that I’m on a free fall. Being here, with these well-oiled dancers is not a recipe for guilt.

I feel buffered from guilt by the fact that it’s been approved by her and by some abstract societal rules that allows men one more night of naughtiness. To use an analogy; it’s a bit like amputating a leg, a drastic measure that lends justification to the larger end. A cathartic exercise – if ever there was one.

My best man is here too, just so you know. I hope he is not carrying the ring with him. He, let’s call him Frank, is a very level-headed fellow. He walks out and checks on me once in a while as if to make sure I don’t run off with the dancer.

The evening winds down in a haze. I remember the scene transform into a loud but cheery tableau of hedonism. I remember the dancer who I was chanting with laying a kiss on my cheek and whispering something in my ears (good luck, I think).

I remember Frank leading me to the car, because I was a bit unstable on my feet. I remember Jimmy, holding a glass of brandy, grinning at me proudly through the car window, and someone behind him saying he had lost his duck. Yes, a duck! Like I said, I was on scotch.

satmag@ke.nationmedia.com